Which Direction Is Your Marketing Headed?
We tend to position our marketing materials and deliver sales presentations from our own perspective. The reality is, you want to market the way your customer buys; and that could be the same or different from the way you write or present. Here is a way to phrase your sales and marketing benefits statements to better influence two dominant thinking patterns. We either look for opportunities or problems; we either have things we want or do not want.
This is an expression of a direction pattern. We are either more goal oriented or problem avoiding. We are either more motivated moving toward goals or more motivated getting away from problems. When we are more goal oriented we talk about benefits and what we want to gain; we use words like obtain; have; get; and achieve. If we are more problem avoiding we talk about losses and what we don't want using words like avoid; prevent; eliminate; get rid of, don't want.
Knowing this pattern is particularly helpful because unless you are a mind reader, you cannot know how your prospect relates to this part of the decision making process. Balance your benefits statements with both goal oriented and problem avoidance statements.
If you want to improve your response rate or gain an advantage over your competition, the use of the directional pattern is one way to appeal to more buying styles. And if you don't want to miss any potential buyers and you want to prevent leaving out an appeal to some, don't go one-way with your marketing. You do understand, don't you?
Patricia Weber is a speaker, trainer, and author of the book Sales Skills for an Unfair Advantage.
