Articles - No One Cares About You!
It's shocking I know, but your clients don't care about you, or your company, or your products. They are not interested in when your company was founded, the number of employees you have, the production techniques you use or the fact that you have just moved to a new site. All they really care about is themselves. All they want to know is what you or your products are going to do for them.
So why do so many of the sales letters, presentations and pitches that I see on a daily basis fail to grasp this simple concept?
While I sit here writing this article I am looking at The Grocer, the trade magazine for the food industry. Now, I know that this is a business to business communication and so probably not the most exciting magazine in the world but companies are spending good money advertising in it. Time and time again all they talk about is themselves, and to prove it here are some examples of the advert headlines.
“We’re proud of our roots"
"We've bitten into the nibbles sector"
“Brand new from the brand leader"
The people reading these adverts want to know ‘what are these products going to do for them?’ What will they do for my business? How much money will I make? In fact every customer you talk to is tuned into one radio station.
‘’WIII FM’’ What Is In It For Me
Every time your client reads an advert, or sales letter, sees a presentation or a sales pitch, all they are thinking is ‘what does this do for me?’
“Clients don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care"
So the question here is how can we show our clients that we care? Well certainly not by talking about ourselves and telling them how fantastic we are! If we are going to show how much we care, we must first understand them, their business and the challenges that they face. In the words of the great Stephen Covey we must:
"Seek first to understand, then to be understood"
Now as salespeople we can do this by asking questions, lots of questions to find out what exactly it is that they want. How are they feeling? What issues are they experiencing? What issues are affecting their business? Really listen to everything your client tells you, make lots of notes to ensure you don’t miss any of the details no matter how small. Then use this information when selling your products and services.
Clients will respect you more when you start to understand more about what drives them as opposed to what drives you.
By Bill Robinson