Small Business Blog

Offers That Work - Do You Offer Anything Valuable?

Give Your Prospects An Offer They Can't Refuse To Make The Sale

Yes, the words "make me an offer I can't refuse" maybe cliché, but there is a very good reason to take this hard wired human mentality to "get a deal", and flip it around for your benefit. What's the flip? You're a business owner with a product or service or solution and you want to sell more, right? You need to come up with an offer that will satisfy the challenge laid down by those words "make me an offer I can't refuse" to even the most cynical of your prospects.

Do this, and you'll be closing more deals and finding more opportunities to do business. Learn how to determine your offer...

Why Do People Buy?

To find out what we need to offer we first need to understand some basics, like why people buy. There are only two reasons why people buy:

• 1. To solve a problem
• 2. To make themselves feel good

Both you and I have heard and given a million reasons for making a decision to buy something, but when it boils down to it, all these reasons can be classified in one of the two areas. If I don't have a need or a problem I'm not going to buy, similarly if I don't want or need to make myself feel good, heck I'm not going to buy either. So, people make a decision by thinking about the problem/need or the product/service/solution in their mind and by asking themselves questions each time they see, hear or experience something related. The questions they ask; "does this solve my problem/need?", and "Will this make me feel good?"

Two key elements dominate this ‘thought & decision process', in a prospects mind. You've probably heard them mentioned before, Emotion & Logic. These are just empty words, unless we give them a very simple meaning;

What Is Logic About?

Simply put, logic is all about defence. A prospect must we be able to defend the purchase to preserve their self-image. To themselves, their family, their friends, and their colleagues. Logic is the PROOF that the purchase was the RIGHT decision to make, the WISE decision to make. Just think about yourself (or some friends) and think about one of the last purchases you or they made recently, let's say it was a $5,000 leather sofa. You'll find people will defend this purchase to their friends buy saying things like, "it cost a little more but the quality is much better so it will last longer" or "it was made in New Zealand not China and was actually half price so really we got great value for money".

So, your offer must allow people to defend their purchase. It's got to be credible and make sense! But proving that the purchase is logical alone will not be enough to make the sale, for that we need emotion.

Emotion is Number 1

Why? Well, it's a time thing. You see, without emotion I don't have to purchase today... it may be logical to buy, but maybe tomorrow or next week or next year. Emotion is about desire, a prospects desire to solve that problem now, a desire to feel good today. The bigger the desire the more people have to have your product/service/solution. You need to build desire!

"I'll Think About It"

If you get lots of prospects saying... "I'll think about", or "I'll call you", or "call me back in....", then you're probably talking too much logic and not enough emotion with customers. Talking emotion is about personalising it, logic is facts you can state to anyone. With emotion it becomes personal. News flash, the only way to make it personal is to ask questions. What is the personal benefit that someone will get out of a feature of your product or service. Here's how you can make sure you understand this;

• 1.Write a list of each of your products or services (or product groups).
• 2.Start with one product or service you want to sell more of, perhaps your conversion rate from prospect to sale is currently poor for this product/service. Write a list of all the reasons people buy that product.
• 3.Now classify each as Logic or Emotion.
• 4.If you don't have many emotional reasons listed, find more by thinking about personalisation, benefits and the feeling it brings, rather than facts.
• 5.Rewrite the list on a new page, with the logic list on the left of a page and the emotion list on the right.
• 6.Study this list and when talking with prospects remember to ask questions to find out their individual and personal emotional elements.
• 7.Repeat for each of your products or services.

Prospects Are Concerned

During the thought & decision process people have only three concerns;

• 1. Fear
• 2. Cost
• 3. Risk

If each of these concerns is outweighed in a person's mind then a purchase is made, if not, there is no purchase. So, you want to know what factors shift the balance to a green light are, right?

• 1. Fear is overshadowed by Support
• 2. Cost is overshadowed by Benefits
• 3. Risk is overshadowed by Assurance

Halleluiah, We Now Have Our Ingredients For A Strong Offer You Just Can't Refuse  

Yes, but ingredients don't make a recipe do they?! So, let's very quickly explain each ingredient then we can combine them.

Fear: "If this doesn't work, I'll look like an idiot" or "If I get this wrong, I'll lose money". Fear is the concern people have about losing something of value if they don't make the right decision, like their pride or cold hard cash. The prospect wants make a decision to buy but is understandably concerned about the possibility of it not working out for them. You need to learn to support them to make a decision. All you are doing communicating the benefits then supporting the decision with logic.

Cost: Arhh yes cost, business owners the world over often believe cost is everything to a prospect, "It's only about price James", I often hear. Let's clear this up. Cost is just that the prospects doesn't want to pay too much, and for some too little (i.e. = cheap and crappy). A prospect wants to get great value for money. They want a great deal. Focus on communicating the benefits for paying the price of your product/service. The more benefits you have and the more value each benefit brings, the more they will overshadow the cost. If you still get price objections, change your target market, or change (read IMPROVE the heck out of) your product and service. You see, if a prospect can't see the benefits, they just won't buy regardless of the cost.

Risk: People can be worriers. "If I change the way I've always done things, I will risk what I've accomplished so far", "If I buy a house now, I might lose money". Very similar to Fear, Risk is about removing the risk from a decision. It is again about communicating the benefits then backing it up this time with the assurance that yes this is a smart decision.

People don't want to be sold to. So, communicate with them instead.

Here's What You've Been Waiting For

An example "offer" to emulate! Offers can be simple, and should be sensitive to the concerns people have; fear, cost, and risk. Here is a list of offers I recently have received that caught my attention and with some ultimately my business;

• 1.The National Business Review (NBR) weekly newspaper sent me a letter offering 4 weeks free subscription. 1) No Fear, I can't lose anything, 2) No Cost, it's free, 3) No Risk, I can say no at end.
• 2.Webex, an online web meeting provider. I was looking at some different options, they offered a 14 day free trial. No Fear, No Cost, No Risk.
• 3.NZBusiness Magazine sent me 2 or 3 months free subscription organised through my BNI (Business Networking International) membership. No Fear, No Cost, No Risk.

In each of these situations they basically Offer;

• We'll set you up free of charge.
• You can use the service for a period of time free of charge.
• If you like it, you keep it.
• If you don't want it at the end of the time period, we'll drop the service free of charge.

Each of the three concern factors are removed. And if a prospect is talking to you and they are seriously investigating making a purchasing decision... this really is an offer too good to refuse!

 

This week's Action Points...

Get excited about this as it is pretty powerful stuff, run a brainstorming session with your team, get feedback from prospects. Whatever you choose, think about all the reasons, the elements, the concerns and the factors carefully. Then go ahead.... Make me an offer I can't refuse!