Sales are effectively the oxygen supply of any business and it is therefore vital for the business owner to understand how to sell their product or service well.
I once read an article called ‘The Science of Persuasion’ which is available online through the Scientific American website. The author, Robert B. Cialdini, spent a number of decades researching the major factors that are responsible for persuading people to take action. The article suggests that there are six characteristics of human behaviour that play a part in generating a positive response and it is interesting to note how these can relate to selling.
The first rule of human conditioning is called Reciprocity. In the U.S., a charity organisation sent a direct mail letter requesting a donation. The appeal generated an 18% response rate. They repeated the exact same appeal only this time they included a set of free personalized address labels and the response rate increased to 35%. Reciprocity is undoubtedly partly responsible for the increase. If you give something to someone, even if it wasn’t asked for there is an innate need to reciprocate or balance the equation. Many marketers are using this to their advantage. Examples can be seen everywhere - free newsletters, the gym that offers free workouts, the supermarket that offers a free yoghurt sample as you do your shopping. If we get something free, we feel in someway indebted and are more likely to purchase.
Marketing to a customer base is becoming increasingly difficult because people are becoming immune to advertising. In the past week you have probably been exposed to thousands of advertisements – can you remember one? Your potential customers are more likely to remember you if you can give them something to remember you by.
The second rule that Cialdini talks about is Consistency. If a person openly agrees to something, they find it difficult to go back on their word because we are driven to be, or at least appear to be consistent. It is this force at work that makes it so hard for many of us to admit we were wrong. Once we have taken a stand and announced that position to the world it is very hard for us to backtrack. Even when no other course of action would be sensible! This characteristic can get business owners into trouble if they continue to pursue a business idea that is not well received in the market just because they have told their friends and family about the venture.
An example used to illustrate this point was a restaurant owner who was frustrated by customers who would reserve a table and not turn up. When someone called to book a table he used to say at the end of the conversation, ‘Please call if you can’t make it’. It didn’t seem to make any difference. Yet once he said to people, ‘Will you please call if you can’t make it?’ and waited for their response, 20% more people called to cancel their booking. The reason is that he made it personal and rather than being a throw away line at the end of the booking, he forced the person calling to agree to let him know if anything changes.
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