Before I reveal the secret of effective marketing, I want to explain a fascinating exercise I often utilize. You have probably seen it performed before. I pick a volunteer out of the audience and stand face to face with one hand up as if we are about to take an oath. I then move my hand forward until our palms make contact. Then I gently start pushing. Without saying a word, the same thing ALWAYS happens. The other person pushes back.
Although this is an amusing activity, it is very significant. When humans feel someone pushing us, we naturally push back. It is one of several ingrained instincts that many marketers fail to address.
You probably feel this resistance in every sales presentation and sometimes when you are just trying to get an appointment. Why is that? Remember that most people hate being sold and find it about as enjoyable as being the antelope trying to escape from a lion. The sale is a fight they do not want to be part of, so they flee. The Fight or Flight mentality has been a part of our instincts for tens of thousands of years. If there is something we do not want to face, we flee.
This leads me to one of my favorite sayings. Several, years ago, I was coaching an advisor who was telling me about a great prospect he had met a month earlier at a party. He said I know I can close the sale if I can just get the appointment. But, I have left 8 messages in the past two weeks and he has not returned any of them. Without thinking too much about it, I responded with If you chase them, they will run. The more this advisor pushed for the appointment, the more the prospect resisted.
At this point, you are probably thinking Steve, what a worthless article. We know prospecting and sales are difficult. All you have done is remind me. Bear with me. We have determined that prospects would rather flee than fight a salesperson and that the harder we push, the more the client resists.
How do you market in a way that does not launch these natural instincts? Many businesses use mass advertising (TV, radio, magazine, newspaper, mailings, etc.) to get your word to thousands of people.
Many years ago, I thought the same thing. We were a medium size operation and I wanted us to become one of the big boys in our market. So, I looked to see what those big competitors were doing. Every one of them had full color, full page ads in industry trade magazines. Obviously, that must be the solution. So, we opened our pocketbook and shelled out $4800 per month for one ad that would be read by nearly 100,000 prospects. Then we sat in the office with a hand hovering over the phone waiting for the calls to come pouring in. Not one call. At the time, we did not understand marketing.
Do you think Coca Cola advertises to attract people who have never heard of Coke? No. They just want to stay in front of you. How often have you seen a commercial from a company you have never heard of, and then you went out and bought their product right away? Almost never. Mass marketing is a great way for large companies to stay in front of existing customers, but it is a horrible way to attract prospects who currently do not know you. This is the single biggest misconception small businesses have.
The best way to introduce yourself to new prospects is by using Attraction Marketing. If a prospect is referred to you, recommended to you, or finds you before you find them, you have a better chance of converting this prospect to a client. Attraction Marketing is taking the right steps to draw the clients to you, because if you chase them, they will run.
Author Resource:
Steve Lawson is the Principal of Steve Lawson Consulting and the Founder of The Prospection Network. Since the early 1990s, he has been training independent professionals to grow their business while spending little to no money. http://www.ProspectionNetwork.com
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