Closing the sale is a critical skill for the local business owner, but it doesn’t always happen. In this video, Carmen shares with you the real reason you’re not turning that prospect into a customer. The answer may surprise you!
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Transcript
Hi I’m Carmen Sognonvi, and in this video I’m going to share with you the real reason you’re not turning that prospect in to a customer. The answer may surprise you!
Has this ever happened to you? You’re talking to someone who seems really interested in your product or service, you build up a great rapport with them and it seems certain that this person will become a customer of yours. But next thing you know, they’re walking out the door and didn’t buy from you. And you think to yourself, what just happened?
“Why did I lose the sale?”
If you’re anything like me, your first reaction is probably to think that it had something to do with your price.
“Oh no, we’re too expensive!”
You’re thinking that maybe you should have offered them a discount – that might have made them sign up. Or you’re thinking that maybe your price is just out of their budget but they’re too embarrassed to admit it.
Then, you start thinking…
“Argh, I messed up!”
You’re thinking that maybe you weren’t aggressive enough. Or maybe that you were too aggressive. You’re thinking that maybe you said something that offended the person – and you’re racking your brain to figure out what it was. You’re thinking that maybe you just didn’t do a good job of demonstrating the value of your product or service.
But what if your assumptions are wrong?
What that person didn’t buy from you for a reason you never thought of before?
Let me share with you an experience from our business.
There’s an email listserve that a lot of local families subscribe to, and one day someone posted a question, looking for feedback about our school, Urban Martial Arts.
One man responded by saying that he checked us out once but didn’t really get a good vibe from us. He said that it seemed like we were more like a commercial enterprise than a genuine martial arts school.
He said he ended up enrolling his son at another school, which he liked because he felt like they were the exact opposite of us because they didn’t spend any money on advertising and had a website from the stone age.
Now of course when I first read this I was a bit taken aback, because after all, it’s human nature to want people to like you. But then I thought about it a bit more and I was actually really grateful that he shared his experience because it made me realize something.
Everyone has a different lens.
The impression that a person has of your business is shaped by the lens through which they see the world. And that lens is created by the values that they have.
In the situation I just shared with you, this man had a set of values that made him believe that being good at marketing and being good at teaching martial arts were mutually exclusive skills. In other words, if you’ve got a great website, it means your classes aren’t good. If you’ve got a bad website, it means your classes are good.
He may not even realize he thinks this way, and I’m not saying that this way of looking at the world is right or wrong, it just is what it is.
But what it means is that even if we did our best to try to enroll his son in a program, if we were flawless in how we demonstrated value, if we built amazing rapport, if we were priced just right for his budget, he still may not have signed up because fundamentally, his values don’t match our values.
And here’s the thing:
Not every customer is right for you.
Let’s say this man did end up enrolling his son at our school. He wouldn’t enjoy the experience. Because he thinks that all we care about is money, he would feel like we always had a hand in his pocket.
And we would enjoy the experience either, because we would feel like this man was always second-guessing us, asking why we charge for the things we charge for, and why we price things the way we price them.
It would be a lose-lose situation.
But luckily, that’s not what happened. The man found a martial arts school that matched his values, and the school gained a new student and a raving fan! Which is awesome!
Talk about a win-win!
So the next time you don’t make a sale, by all means, think about how you could do a better job next time. But also take some time to think about whether that prospect was a good match for your business’s values. The answer might surprise you.
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Thanks, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on how a person’s values affect the way their perceive your business.
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