“To sell, persuade, or motivate someone, you really need to understand that person. The goal is to understand”
Dan Kennedy
What are you selling?
Who needs it?
Why do they need it?
There is an old adage that says you cannot understand someone until you have walked a ‘mile in their shoes’. If you can point out the people you want to sell to and take the time to understand how they think, selling will become easier.
Why? Because you have what most don’t. You have useful data.
Because you understand how they think, you can use words they will understand to explain why they need what you’re selling.
Because you understand how they think, you can position what you’re selling as the solution they need to get them the results they want.
So how do you get useful data on the people you want to sell to?
How do you even know who is the right person?
Start with the most basic information you know about them. Let’s start with the type of data, that is clear cut and easy to get, like their;
Occupation
Age
Gender
Income level
Education
Marital Status
This information is not hard to find. Facebook, Twitter, and Google can give you some of these.
There is a type of data that is hard to find. They are;
How do they (the people you want to sell to) think?
What motivates them?
What do they secretly desire?
What are they afraid of?
This type of data can only be gotten through research and study.
Let me say this; if you draw up a plan without any research or study on the people you want to sell to, you’re not marketing, you’re gambling. This is the part that a lot of businesses struggle with.
If you want to write a winning sales plan, you cannot run away from this.
If you want to build content that sells, you cannot avoid this.
If you want to write a sales letter that converts, you need to have this data.
If you want to make selling easy, you must know this.
The problem is “most people aren’t willing to do the hard work it takes to make selling easy”. But if you are still reading up to this point, I know you are committed to identifying and understanding the people you want to sell to.
Today, I will show you what I did, how I did it.
After almost 8 years in sales, here is one of the most important lessons I learned. Questions are the heart of the sale. Questions change the conversation from a selling one to a buying one. Once I understood this, the next thing I needed to figure out was, what questions do I ask?
Another lesson I picked up is, if you ask the wrong question, you will get the wrong answer. So, what are the right questions to ask?
Just before I wrote the sales letter for the “2 Step Instant Message Sales Template”, I read a book titled “The Ultimate Sales Letter”. It was written by Dan Kennedy. In the book, he talked about crawling inside the mind of your ideal customer and understanding their daily experiences. He said, “the more in touch you are with your customer or prospect, the better you will be at sales.”
This means that the questions you ask must address their priorities, not yours.
You need to ask questions that put the focus on the person, you’re asking the question. Ask them questions that make them think about themselves. Ask them for their opinion. Ask them about things that are important to them.
When I read this, I knew what I had to do. Because I love selling and teaching people about sales, I know sales are important to these people;
Business owners
Sales representatives
Business Developers
If you sell a product or a service, you need to find out who really needs what you’re selling. Have a list of more than 2 groups.
The next thing to do is, find where these people hang out. For my business, I know a lot of businesses use social platforms to promote their products and services. This is their “hang-out spot.” All I had to do was go there and ask them questions that will give me more information about them. So, what questions will I ask? What questions should you ask?
You do not have to come with any questions. I didn’t. I just used the ‘10 Smart Market Diagnosis and Profiling Questions’ by Dan Kennedy. He calls these questions an important checklist that anyone can use to understand and connect with people they want to sell to.
The questions are:
- What keeps them awake at night, eyes open, staring at the ceiling?
- What are they are afraid of?
- What are they angry about? Who are they angry at?
- What are their top three daily frustrations?
5. - What do they secretly desire most?
- Is there a built-in bias to the way they make decisions?
- Do they have their own language?
- Who else is selling something similar, and how are they selling it?
- Who has tried selling them something similar and how did that effort fail?
If you look closely, the questions can be used in any industry.
A good understanding of the people you want to sell to should not be overlooked or neglected by any serious-minded business. Don’t assume you know who you want to sell to. Research and study them, get to know and understand them. Then use the information you gather to position your product or service as the solution.
I know a lot of businesses struggle with sales. I know every business needs sales to survive and thrive. I know every new business desperately looks forward to getting that first sale. I know the “2 Step Instant Message Sales Template” can get you sales. All I did was tell every business this.
You can do the same too, so get on with it!