You Got to Have Heart

When it comes to selling there’s no difference between a baseball player and a salesperson; the one who will bat over 300 or close greater than 30% are those with heart.  And for those salespeople representing a product or service with marketing and branding aligned to the sales process,achieving a close rate of over 50% is entirely possible. You will not connect with your customers with features and benefits nor systems, procedures and protocols. Analytically, logically and rationally there maybe no reason why anyone would not choose to go with your company’s offerings. But systems procedures and protocols appeal to the mind and not the heart.

What triggers that impulse to buy? Where does that electrical impulse come from that allows a customer to commit to a proposal or purchase a product? It does come from the brain but a micro second before that the persons gut felt it was the right thing to do.

It’s relatively easy to wrap your brain around a situation, an issue, a client’s perceived need and devise a product or service that meets those needs. Marketing people and MBA’s spend a lot of time devising promotions, ads,procedures and protocols that will identify, promote and solve issues and meet client’s needs. These needs must be met in your product or service; the brain is not totally disengaged when someone is shopping. However, what will turn a prospect into a satisfying lifelong relationship as a customer, is a heartfelt connection.

There used to be a popular saying “it’s nothing personal, it’s just business”. If your business isn’t personal for you and your clients, it won’t survive. That is not to say you can be all things to all people and if you’re not, your business is a failure. In branding you will target your customers; you will not be the preferred brand for all people. You just need to be the best option or brand for the people you’re targeting. When your company is not a fit, it isn’t personal, but when it is, it is. And that will bring you loyal customers or clients for life.

Number of calls, frequency of visits the amount your target market has seen your message, it’s nothing personal, it’s just business,are all old school. Scripts, manipulations and consultants with their data, tactics and tricks won’t overcome a lack of heart. As salespeople and business owners we need to overcome old school thinking and go back to the reason we got into the work we do. Is it a new way of thinking? Probably not. It’s opening ourselves up to being real and to stand behind our work.

Caring is the difference. But it isn’t just caring in the sales process it has to be communicated and honestly felt. Salespeople who close at rates over 30% are not faking it. And as a part of branding the caring for the product or service and the customer, has to permeate and be real throughout the organization. Caring is everything, scripts, persuasion and manipulations will never suffice when your employees or sales people don’t care. It starts with you. Great branding is being true to what’s real inside of you.

We all know how it feels when someone tries to care about us or our situation with their head. It’s awkward, stilted and forced. It just doesn’t feel genuine. In a sales situation we walk away from it feeling unmoved and not really knowing why because we really wanted to like what they were selling. It’s in our nature and we wouldn’t have spent the time if we weren’t interested.

As salespeople or business owners we all know how  it feels to connect to a customer make a real impact, when we walk away from a client interaction that really moved the ball forward when you feel the client “really got it” and everyone involved seemed to bond towards a common goal.