- Buying/Selling something is about the future, but most people exist in the present. Most people, when you speak to them, spend most of their time dealing with and thinking about the stuff they’ve got going on just now and in the near future – 1 month, 3 months…whereas the problems solved, advantages gained and money made from B2B products and services tends to be felt further off in the future – and often needs some planning to implement. Sometimes it helps to bear this in mind when speaking to potential buyers – it helps to get them to think about the long term impact of doing something/not doing something now.
- Imagination –buying is an exercise in imagining. Some people imagine with facts and figures, some with pictures, some in other ways – a person buying something imagines what the experience of it will be like for them. If you are buying your wife a piece of jewellery you imagine how pleased she will be. If you’re buying pair of jeans you might imagine how you’ll look in them, or how fashionable they make you look. It’s the same with selling a B2B product or service – the buyer imagines how their marketing campaign will sell more product, or they imagine how their life will be much easier with a more efficient solution. If you can paint a clear and compelling picture, you will help your buyer imagine well and if it’s a good picture they’ll buy…
- Human interaction – one of our clients’ proposition is based on the premise that human brains are wired to engage with stories, that because we as a species have passed on knowledge using stories as a medium for generation after generation, we are pre-disposed to respond to information presented in the form of stories than dryer methods of communication. This reminds me of a trick my uncle used to do when I was a kid – he could memorise a deck of playing cards – usually took him about 45 minutes to an hour but to me it was amazing. Years later, he told me how he did it – he basically invented a story with each of the cards as a character. This applies in sales too – telling to stories of your case studies has a much higher impact than the dry facts and the human side of the story – what it meant for the client, what they experience was, the challenge, how it was heroically overcome – this stuff is what brings a story to life.