This is from our marketing mercenary news letter….
Catching Customers is Like Catching Fish
It took over two hours of dropping her line in the water and fish stealing her bait before she caught her first fish, a beautiful blu gill , which she named “old grand dad”. My six year old daughter Evie was thrilled, and she was hooked.
Hooked in the way a marketing pro gets hooked when they find just the right words to have a successful campaign, or when a sales pro closes their first big deal.
We love this feeling. It is what keeps us in the game.
Most don’t get it often. Many get discouraged and quit. Some continue to try hard with limited success. And the ones we want to focus on today, are almost always successful.
Why?
In my last news letter you learned that “Effort plus Correct Theory equals Profound Results” The successful in any field “ out effort “their competition. The greats added “ correct theory” to their hustle.
So what can my six year old daughter s fishing passions teach us about correct theory in sales and marketing?
A lot, actually:
* She was very clear on what she wanted; Catch the fish. Not just any fish , but “old grand dad”.
* She did her market research. Before she baited her hook for the first time, she threw different types of bait in the lake and learned that the fish liked bread. Bread was the bait her fish wanted and bread was the bait they got.
* She put 100% effort and focus on her goal.
* She did not give up, the fish took the bread off of her hook thirty two times before she caught her first fish. Would you take 32 no’s to get one yes?
* She was willing to learn and adapt. She noticed that certain times of the day the fish were hungry and other times they were not. She went to work when the fish were hungry and left them alone when they were not.
Let’s look at two components of her strategy that you can use: Bait and timing.
If your prospects are not buying you might be using the wrong bait.
So what is the right bait?
It is not your product, it is what your product can do for your prospect.
Sales and marketing pros know to focus on the benefits of a product not the features.
Which benefit should you focus on?
My daughter could not put the whole loaf of bread on her hook, it would have been too much. In fishing and in sales , less is more.
Don’t bait your hook with all the benefits of your product. Only focus on the one or two benefits that are most important to your client.
How do you find out what is important ?
You ask and you observe.
As Mark Twain said, “ There are two reasons people buy, the reason they tell their wife and friends and the real reason” To be successful you need to find out the “real reason”.
In my next news letter, I will offer a proven strategy to find out what your customers really want, and a way to present it to them so they get ….hooked
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