Interesting title to this article don't you think? Well, the reason behind it is powerful and life changing.
If you do any kind of selling this post could be the most important thing you read and act upon in 2006.
So, why are your customers lab rats?
I'll tell you why you need to think of them in this way and how by doing so you can make your selling job easier and your profits go through the roof.
I was listening to an old interview with Speed Selling Expert John Paul Mendocha this morning and from that interview I was reminded of this utterly simple and clear headed concept.
Think of all the people in your universe (the entire pool of people you could possibly sell to) as lab rats. Some of them are black rats, white rats, beige rats, grey rats, spotted rats and so on.
To be truly successful in selling and marketing and to make your success faster and easier you need to know exactly which type of rats you are going to do research on. So let's say the white rats have some propensity to buy from you more than any other color (maybe even just a little).
Once you know this you need to stop all your selling and marketing efforts to any rat that isn't white. This makes your job not selling your services but finding the white rats. Which do you think is easier to do…sell or pick out white rats out of a group?
In real terms these concepts are targeting, picking a niche, qualifying and disqualifying in your business, marketing and sales efforts.
In 2006 I want you to limit the number of customers you can talk to. I want you to reduce the size of the pool you play in. I want you to not focus on a mass audience but on a very narrow one.
That's right…I'm telling you to reduce the number of potential targets you can sell you goods and services to.
Sounds counter intuitive doesn't it? It's not!
With your focus on only the best prospects and a smaller number of them your marketing and selling can be much more effective. You will have more money and time to concentrate, penetrate and infiltrate that group and your results will be significantly greater then if you were to "spray and pray" your dollars, time and effort on a large pool of random people.
Let's go back to our "lab rat" analogy.
Think of your business as a big lab study. First you have to decide what animal you are going to perform the study on. We were talking about rats before but let's take a step back for a minute.
The choice of what animal out of all the animals available for study is called niche targeting and there are several options to choose from. They are:
Occupations: Lawyers, Doctors, Trash Collectors, Realtors
Geographic: People in a five mile radius, people in a certain subdivision, people in certain towns, zip codes, voting precincts, school districts, metropolitan areas or states.
Demographic: People that have certain characteristics in common. For example income, drive the same kind of car, gender, have kids, height, weight, ethnicity.
Psychographics: These are the things that people are passionate about – their likes and dislikes, their passions, their love hate relationships with things. These are tougher to reach but they are generally really motivated buyers.
Here are some examples:
Love rap music
Hate country music
Loved the eighties
Hate the Miami Dolphins
Love George Bush
Hate Hillary Clinton
Hate Mercedes Benz
Love chocolate
Hate John Mayer
You get the picture here.
Now, let's say we choose Occupations and Realtors in Florida. That's who we're going to target. We just picked rats as the animal to do the study on. But we have all these rats to choose from – black, grey, beige, spotted and white.
Through experimenting we find that the white rats are the ones with the best temperament for the experiment (the easiest to sell to) so now it is our job to find all the white rats.
How do you do that?
You qualify and disqualify. Here are five questions you can ask to pick out the "white rats" and make your selling process easier.
1. Does this rat have the money to buy my product or service?
2. Does this rat believe and buy into my big benefit or Gravitational Proposition?
3. Does this rat have a sense of urgency to purchase?
4. Is this rat capable of making a buying decision?
5. Does my product or service fit into their overall plan?
If your rat meets these five criteria or a good number of them they are "WHITE". So now that you know you are only talking to rats (realtors in Florida) we don't try to sell we try to find the "White" ones – the ones that fit these five criteria.
Go find your white rats and make 2006 your best year ever!
Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller are the authors of "The Ten Tall Tales Of Traditional Advertising That Cost You Tons" and their newest release, "The Small Business Owner's Guide To The Galaxy: Jim & Travis's Super-Stellar, Out Of This World, Step-By-Step Guide To Generating Leads, Attracting Customers and Making Sales." Get FREE small business marketing tips, shortcuts and secrets - RIGHT NOW - at The Small Business Marketing Resource Site!
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