The reasons your clients want to buy from you are not only economic. As rainmakers, we need to convince people on many aspects before they will make a decision.
In pitches, facts & numbers alone won’t bring you any sales. Also, being likable is not enough if you ignore the social dynamics of a deal.
We can group buying reasons into three building blocks you will see (and maybe use) in any great pitch:
- Trust
- Social
- Economics
The individual weight of each block can vary slightly, depending on whom you have in front of you. But we need to address all three.
What does each building block mean in detail? Here are a few thoughts & leading questions:
Trust
In the long run, we build trust by keeping our promises.
But what if a relationship is still at the beginning? Here, we must consider the emotional processes that help us, trust strangers.
Emotions are signals of the body. They tell you if something is wrong or right or if at least something needs to be considered by the brain’s rational part. We cannot ignore them either in ourselves or in our spokespersons.
Emotions are compelling and can become the only force leading to actions. I had sales meetings where I couldn’t achieve anything. Negative emotion overshadowed all the benefits I planned to present.
When meeting strangers, we are especially sensitive toward signals of trust and believability. Our emotions help us to interpret our spokesperson’s behavior and process those signals on a subconscious level. Any masquerade or fake smile will create a strange feeling which tells us to stay away.
In contrast, a person who appears natural, consistent in actions and words, and appears on the outside with her true self creates trust more quickly.
Now let’s assume we have a healthy and conscious spokesperson in front of us. In a conversation, she (subconsciously) might ask herself:
- Do I feel well when speaking to this person?
- Can I trust this person?
- Are there signals of truth?
Keeping those questions in mind will help us prepare the next sales story. Stay conscious about what you say, how you move and look.
Social
Social proof is one of the most effective psychological forces behind a decision. It’s one of the most effective tactics you can apply. We mostly do and buy what others have tested before us. If you don’t use testimonials, it’s time to think about it.
But there are more social aspects to consider when pitching a solution.
Imagine successfully convincing your spokesperson to buy your service or product.
Now she must convince her peers that the new solution is the right one. For instance, those colleagues need to approve a budget or must cooperate with you on the operations of a service.
There will be critical people. They will be more or less reluctant to change (the change associated with your solution). So it would be best if you convinced them by educating your spokesperson. Ideally, your spokesperson becomes your “customer internal re-seller.”
So, in essence, a sales story must address those questions about social aspects:
- What do others think? What are the general opinion and the reputation of the product?
- Who else is using the product? What are their experiences? Would they recommend it?
- How can the client sell this internally? What are the selling points for the people above and below your spokesperson?
- How can they convince their peers that the change associated with the solution is good for them?
Economics
Finally, a deal must make sense for economic reasons. A positive business case is the most obvious reason to buy a product or service.
We often overlook the complexity of calculating your product’s actual value. Inexperienced business people tend to paint an overly optimistic picture. They then learn only later that sold business value must hold its promise. If not, it will destroy reputation and believability.
If it’s too complex to calculate the numbers behind economic reasons – name it. Better have no numbers than fake numbers.
Important questions to consider here are:
- What’s the dollarized value of the solution?
- What’s the lifetime value of the solution?
- What’s the potential loss of not doing/buying the solution?
- What is the business case for the whole story (ALL costs vs. ALL actual benefits)?