Today’s customers are
overloaded and overwhelmed by too much information, so making a decision is a
challenge. You may think this is only important to your marketing and sales
people, but in reality it doesn’t matter how great your product or technology might
be, you won’t succeed if you don’t understand your target customer decision
process. Every aspect of your business must be about sales. Here are truths
about selling, and the customer decision process, which every business needs to
address in their product, business model, and their whole customer experience.
Success
requires continuous learning and improvement; No matter how
certain you are that your solution perfectly matches customer needs, you will
be wrong. Success requires a willingness to take responsibility for
shortcomings, better understand customer needs, and the ability to quickly
learn and adapt. This is the growth equation for a startup.
Emotions
drive customer decision-making; your ability as a
business to uncover and capitalize on customers emotional motivators will
dictate your success.. The lowest price is not always the real customer
motivator.
Every
growth business must have a repeatable process;
Just like good sales people have a repeatable process they follow, every
startup has to overcome the chaos of a new business, put structure in place,
document their processes, and focus on scaling up the engine. Everyone on the
team must adopt the same culture and recipe for success.
Business
brand trust begins with customer empathy; Empathy is
about being fully engaged with your customers, through interactive social
media, and taking the time to listen to real customers face-to-face. You have
to demonstrate common ground and shared values with your customers over the
entire customer experience.
Integrity
matters in all aspects of a business; a business has to
demonstrate integrity, reliability, and competency, just like a good sales team
member. Integrity means doing what you say you’re going to do as a business,
being responsive to changing needs, and making the right kind of promises to
your target customer segment.
Grow
by helping customers rather than pushing a message;
if you ask customers how you can help, you will uncover what matters most. This
is more effective in directing their thinking and actions than selling
technology. Well-crafted questions pull in customers. Good questions create
change. Great questions can change the world.
Emotional
commitment precedes economic commitment; don’t try to create a
sense of urgency by appealing to greed. Your business and your team need to
understand and demonstrate how your product connects precisely to what
motivates your customer. These days, that includes a memorable total experience
and testimonials from friends.
Removing
customer resistance takes persistence; all customers are
prone to raising objections, because change is hard, there are many
competitors, and decisions take time to make. As a new business trying to grow,
you need to be able to isolate the toughest customer objections, and adapt your
solution or business model to eliminate them.
Looking
for wrongs never makes you right; every entrepreneur
struggling with business growth has the urge to blame it on a lack of funding,
an economic downturn, or unfair competitor. Instead, look for what has worked,
and what you haven’t yet tried with your customers, to get it right. Focus on
the real purpose that customer’s seek. Businesses that think and act as a whole
like their best sales people will build what their customers want and need,
making everyone’s job a lot easier, and the customers a lot happier.
At Korsell Corporate
Consult Limited, we help you with your business planning, strategy document and
other custom services. Speak to us now 055 391 9618 or Email:
in**@*********************lt.com
