Will you marry me? The art of making the Sale.

I’m going to help you with your sales pipeline and conversion through the art of getting married. In simple terms the art of making the sale, with the same focus as asking the question; will you marry me.

I’ve no doubt you have friends who are married, and hopefully happy at that, maybe reading this you are married yourself, or have made the commitment and are engaged. So was it someone you knew or did you meet someone and immediately ask them to marry you?

Imagine the Scene

Imagine the scene, you’re at the local disco-tech (ok nightclub) and across the dance floor, your eyes lock with another. You know they are the one for you, there’s just something that resonates with you. Passion, lust, interest and all of those other primal instincts start to course through your body. Glance after glance your eyes lock and now you’re off. You calmly make your way around the dance floor, or directly moonwalk your way across to them.

As you close in they register your interest and there is an intriguing smile of recognition and excitement. With the music, so loud you can hardly hear yourself speak you close in, heart pumping and feeling excited. As you close in they exhibit all the welcoming signs as you share a smile. You lean across to say something, they offer you their ear, so they can listen to your introduction. Maybe a comical or cheap one-liner to break the ice.

You close in and shout into their ear ‘WILL YOU MARRY ME!’

Sound familiar?

NO, it should do because most businesses seem to think this direct approach will work. In other words, seeking to go from prospect directly to customer without any sense of relationship. Encouraging a prospect to buy from you will require a relationship. You need to build resonance with your prospect, to court them, encourage and entice them to engage.

In the same context as getting married, you first need to identify the partner or prospect. You will need to nurture a relationship, maybe go out on a few dates, get to know them a little (or a lot) better. Maybe even meet the parents. The long story short here, and I’m sure you get it,  you need to develop the relationship. It’s not a case of marry me.

The same is absolutely the same for your prospects. You need to entice interest, nurture a relationship before you ask them to buy from you. So, what is your process? Does your marketing have levels of engagement available? Are you able to track progress through your marketing process, to nurture interest through a CRM, web analytics, surveys, website impressions, enquiries, calls, emails etc? Once your eyes have locked across the dance floor how do you then court them through to marriage, or at the very least buying from you?

Planning and Systems.

You need to have a marketing plan in the first instant. In terms of making the sale, what’s the journey they take from the point they take an interest. All too often business misses out the sales process altogether. Let’s be clear there is a distinct difference between marketing and sales. Marketing is an area of expertise and science all of its own. Selling is the same and requires you to have some focus on the process and conversion to make the sale. What’s your sales process?

Interestingly for the most part in order to make the sale, there will need to be 7 – 8 touches here in the UK (the US is around 14). What that means is a focus on small touches or nudges of influence to encourage the sale. From the point of interest, what would 7 touches look like in your business, your sales process or the sales pipeline? Interest, collect information, send information, confirm information received and understood, engage regarding information, trial, reminder, deal with concerns, sell.

Your Sales Pipeline is often one area within the business which is neglected, limited or no thought regarding who and how we should grow a relationship with; your prospect. The journey we take them through to making the sale. When we understand that the vast majority of decisions are driven by emotion, in effect the 80:20 rule suggests that 80% is made based on emotion and 20% on logic, building a relationship is creating the emotional connection. Just look at the adverts all the big players use today on TV. They all seek to connect with you. What do you need to do to connect with your prospects? It certainly isn’t dashing across the dance floor and asking them to marry you.

Now there’s a challenging thought.