Move beyond the price when making the sale

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There is no absence of words to live by. They range from offering good advice – “On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key” – to the practical – “By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.”
Sales and marketing professionals, who must do battle in an economic environment where all types of buyers are bedeviled by financial pressures, can benefit from words to work by that are not just hackneyed clichés. Here is a checklist of words that send the right message to your customers:
&#8226 Security. Avoiding unnecessary risk is on everyone’s mind. Today, even seemingly small mistakes can lead to unemployment. “What are the implications if I make this buying decision?” is the common question from customers. That is why addressing it is key to closing sales. It’s a lesson straight out of the IBM playbook of the late 1980s and ’90s. Because the brand was so highly regarded, buyers felt safe buying IBM. From the get-go, work on helping customers understand why it is safe to buy your product or service.
&#8226 Agility. Contrary to how it might seem, two of the most agile industries are real estate and restaurants. Rather than stand by and hope for the best, both responded quickly and creatively to the economic slowdown. Instead of trying to talk consumers into changing their thinking about the housing situation, real estate companies changed their advertising almost instantly. In print and on the Internet, ads featured much-lower-priced homes in many communities. They didn’t need headlines to say that prices were dropping; they portrayed the story. So, too, from fast foods to fine dining, restaurants began advertising interesting menus at lower prices. Instead of wait and die, the strategy should be to move quickly and survive.
&#8226 Productivity. “In the coming era,” writes Kevin Kelly, Senior Maverick at Wired magazine, “doing the exactly right next thing is far more fruitful than doing the same thing twice,” which may be the only definition of productivity that really makes sense today. It suggests that the “doing it right” mentality is dangerous, dead-end thinking. It inevitably leads to the conclusion that once we get it right (whatever that happens to be), [that] is enough. There is a powerful message here for marketing and sales. Namely, position your product or service in terms of continuous productivity improvement. A dramatic example of this approach is the Apple iPhone. From the start, it has been portrayed as a self-improving product, rather than “here’s the latest and the greatest gizmo,” which is the usual approach.
&#8226 Convenience. Inchworm (inchworm.com) shoes for kids are actually three sizes in one shoe. When the shoe is shown to a group, everyone with children asks, “Where can I get them?” No one asks about the price. The Inchworm message is clear: convenience, no more running to the shoe store every six weeks. With time in as short supply as money, anything that helps eliminate inconvenience sends a powerful message to buyers.
&#8226 Leadership. It did not take long for auto manufacturers to jump on the hybrid bandwagon. But so far, Toyota, the first to come out with dual-energy vehicles, is the perceived leader, with its Prius taking 51.2 percent of the segment’s market share in 2007. Toyota hybrids deliver on the promise of greater fuel efficiency, illustrating that leadership is all about performance. When it comes right down to it, we recognize leadership when we see it, not when someone talks about it.
&#8226 Savings. Whenever we buy from a salesperson, there is a gnawing fear that the purchase will benefit the person making the sale more than the buyer. In tighter times, this fear seems far more pervasive. Unless a salesperson makes a point of addressing the cost-saving benefits of the purchase, the sale is probably in jeopardy. Take computer monitors as an example. Surveys reveal that no matter how you measure productivity, adding a second monitor gives workers a productivity boost of 20 to 30 percent, according to Jon Peddie Research.
&#8226 Reliability. Whether it’s a trend is not clear, but some companies that jumped into outsourcing help-desk services overseas a few years ago are bringing them home and for good reason: Customers complained that the service was unreliable. In the same way, Circuit City fired its competent, well trained and highest-paid hourly salespeople to cut costs, the backbone of the business. They replaced tested employees who were adept at serving customers with young, poorly trained part-timers. Is there a connection between the arrival of an unreliable work force and the company’s serious financial problems?
&#8226 Value. A man whose father died when he was a child looked back on his youth with some amazement. “My mother and I were poor by any standards,” he related. “Yet, she bought me expensive Selby Arch Preserver shoes. She said they were better for my feet and don’t wear out so fast.” Even when many people are buying down, there is a significant segment who relate to value.
It is easy to be seduced into believing that price is all that customers care about. It isn’t true. Words count because they often symbolize crucial issues and words that capture what customers are thinking can help keep us focused on the right issues – if we want to make sales in even tighter times. &#8226
John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications, a marketing and sales consulting firm. He can be reached at j_graham@graham.com.

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