We are working on reducing stress at work. We have chosen to work as a marketer or entrepreneur. We are introducing a process that will not only make you feel good at work, but also drastically improve your business success.
The process is based on proactive action to achieve the vision, as we have seen in the last two articles.
After explaining how we can draw strength from our vision to overcome existing obstacles and describing the first two factors that are key to success(the internal orientation of the seller and the demand for the product or market potential), we go on to explain the third and fourth.
3. Product presentation
This point covers two conditions:
- Depth and breadth of market penetration: how many people will be introduced to the idea and how deeply it will be embedded in their brains,
- design, structure and delivery of the presentation: choice and flow of facts, use of appropriate arguments, salesperson’s communication skills, etc.
The first point requires the entrepreneur or retailer to make a series of strategic choices. The first is already how to communicate the product to the target audience; or whether to do anything at all in this direction.
If he chooses to actively promote, he faces a new challenge: whether to actively present the product only to his customer base or more broadly… whether he wants to approach them in sequences or cumulatively (the so-called “product launch”) or through a one-off presentation… or whether he should advertise in the media or through business partners who will offer the product to his customer base. And so on.
In the case of advertising in the media, it again raises a lot of questions: where to advertise … what to highlight … how to set up the promotion and how aggressively to carry it out … whether to combine different media or concentrate the money in one … how much money to spend … whether to market the product directly by advertising, whether it is better to market in two steps (in the first step to invite potential customers to come forward – usually in exchange for a gift – and in the second step to sell) and so on.
The fundamental mistake that usually accompanies promotion is a message that is not targeted enough. Namely, when marketers are given the task of defining their target group, they usually say that their customers are everyone, because their product can help all people.
That may be true … but it is not the most effective approach when we want to be successful. The more targeted the message, the more it will work. But how do we do it? First, let’s find out who our best customers are, then let’s design the sales message as if it were exclusively for them.
For example, if we offer food supplements that can really help everyone stay healthy, give them energy and so on, let’s first look at who we are selling them to in the first place. Is it active athletes? Business people? Highly conscious mums who want the best for their children? Vegetarians?
Once you have found this market segment, you design your sales message as if you were addressing just one person – a typical member of this target population. Of course, you can select multiple target groups, tailor the text to them and advertise in places that will reach only them. Otherwise – if we wanted everyone to know about our offer – the campaign would be too big and therefore too expensive, and the final impact would be small. (More on campaign design below.)
Promotion will bring various benefits, but these will also have to be realised or used when the opportunity arises. Of course, our first priority will – hopefully – be customers, whom we will be happy to serve.
But we often forget the other potential of promotion: if we get it right, people who are interested in the product in principle, but not yet ready to buy it, will come forward as well as buyers.
(The third benefit is to strengthen or consolidate our position and reputation in the market, which we achieve through increased media presence: people will hear about us more in a short time, so we will be in their memory. However, do not count too much on this increase in sales, because the result is completely unpredictable. The campaign will bring people closer to your product, but it will probably stop there. The exception is advertising at a time when no one else is advertising; and even then, this applies more to lower-end products and those that we need every day.)
Let’s go back to the potential buyers who have contacted us and are interested in the offer, but don’t want to open their wallets at the moment. We will have to make a decision on them:
- how much we will invest in them,
- how actively we approach or nurture them,
- how long we intend to nurture them.
The aim is, of course, to lead them to a purchase decision. Here, too, we need a systematic approach. First, we need to look at our statistics and find out under what circumstances a potential buyer comes to us in the first place.
Was he referred to us by a friend who was happy with us? Had he heard about us before? Perhaps he or she visited our website regularly or followed our offers regularly and was waiting for a good reason to buy (better conditions, special price, gift, etc.)?
Once we are clear about where and how stakeholders follow us, how they find us and what is the trigger for them to come to us, we create a “sales funnel” or proactively create this kind of context.
Of course, the first question is how much money it makes sense to invest in this activity.
The key lies in what we call customer lifetime value: we need to calculate how much money the average customer spends with us across all purchases combined, and how much of that is left over.
Based on the amount we have identified, we decide how much to invest in it upfront – whether through advertising, working with business partners (better known as “join venture” or “affiliate marketing”), free gifts, etc.
In practice, the first sale to a customer is the hardest and the most expensive, as sometimes we have to literally wrest them from the clutches of the competition (read: give them a big discount and/or great terms). Once we have established a relationship and they trust us, the sale goes through.
The biggest mistake we can make is to neglect our existing customers: once they decide to buy our product, we put them on the back burner (and rush to find new customers).
That was a brief description of the first point, which was market penetration.
The second point – the design, structure and execution of the presentation itself – is not linked to the broader developments, but is based on the trader’s preparation, commitment, approach… Or rather, the energy they put into the project.
We will look at this point through some important guiding principles to help us design our presentation.
The first condition for a successful presentation
Let’s start with the basics: no matter how you deliver your message to potential customers, you need to be able to sell the product to the potential customer in person, when they are standing in front of you; i.e. one-to-one.
Everything else – texts on websites, sales video and audio, direct mail, adverts, etc. – are just derivatives. No medium or sales channel can compensate for our inability to sell in person.
So the golden rule is: until you have the concept and execution of one-to-one sales down to a science, don’t invest energy in multiplying the (failed) message – because you will only be multiplying the effect of a live sale through communication.
The key to success lies in the salesperson’s enthusiasm for the product
A successful presentation is not made by the product, but by the salesperson. If the salesperson is genuinely enthusiastic about the product, he or she will almost automatically pull the interviewee into the story.
This is also the easiest way to communicate or establish a relationship with the other person. When the salesperson sees first-hand the product’s extraordinary effect and shares his experience with the interlocutor, the latter will feel the enthusiasm. As a result, the salesperson does not need to use “sales techniques” (read: cornering the customer through pre-learned phrases that make both the salesperson and the interlocutor feel bad).
The difference is not just in the sentences spoken, but in the energy or emotion created in the room: as long as the salesperson is enthusiastically explaining how he or she can solve the problem for the other person, they both feel good.
When the former resorts to various techniques – learned phrases, asking questions, exaggerations, “miracle effect” stories, conditioning the purchase, etc. – there is a sense of discomfort in both: the former is aware (at least deep down, if not consciously) that he is backing his interlocutor into a corner, and the interlocutor shuts down or adopts a defensive posture.
A salesperson who is a bit clumsy with his message but believes passionately in the product is much more convincing than a salesperson who memorises the phrases and prepares a presentation perfectly… but does not have a firm belief that the product will be of any real benefit to the customer.
In short, the presentation should be based on the enthusiasm for the product, not on a product in which we are trying to find something to draw enthusiasm from.
And let’s not forget, a strong belief that the product will really help the customer is not expressed through hand-wringing, through raising one’s voice and through an energy that conveys the message “If you don’t go for this, there is something wrong with you”, but through a kind of “soft determination”, clear positions and integrity.
The extraordinary power of storytelling
But even more successful will be those who shape their faith into a meaningful and effective presentation. And what is the best way to convey the salesperson’s enthusiasm to the interlocutor? A factual description of the situation, or a story in which the salesperson describes the experience with the product through the role of a customer. The story can also be supported by the real experiences of other users.
The power of storytelling has also been statistically proven. Carnegie Mellon University produced a dedicated study where sales were tested in three ways:
- presentation through the bare facts,
- presentation through facts plus a story,
- presentation through storytelling without reciting facts.
The sales impact achieved through telling a story without facts was 59% higher than a set of facts combined with a story and 148% higher than a presentation with bare facts.
The key to the effectiveness of this presentation lies in the interlocutor’s specific perception of what is being said. As long as the salesperson is talking about an experience, the interlocutor does not feel that the first salesperson is selling him something… and neither does he feel that he is imposing his opinion or even pushing him into a corner. On the contrary, the interviewee thinks about himself or herself while listening to the story, or “adds two and two” and imagines how the product would help him or her.
Here lies another success factor: many presentations are structured in such a way that they do not impose a final belief on the interlocutor, but allow him or her to come to a conclusion on his or her own. This is a very effective approach when we do not want to be caught in the trap of “I don’t have the money”, “I’ll think about it”, etc. at the end.
If the retailer is a bit more strategic in its approach to marketing, it can present the story in a “before-after” way. For example, in combination with his own experience: “Before using, I had an unsolvable problem – look at the photo – but with this product, I have permanently solved the problem.”
Secrets of a successful presentation
Let us mention a few clues for the presentation itself. First, we need to decide what we are going to highlight about the product and how we are going to communicate this advantage effectively. The worst is if we just list and describe the many (common) features and functions.
The reason is that we want to please everyone, so we present the product through a “There’s something for everyone” angle. As I said, this is not the best approach; we prefer to focus on a narrow segment of the market and present the product as if it were made just for them.
The best presentations are based on a unique demonstration of the product’s strengths, which consequently differentiates it from competitors. A product does not always have to be brand new, contain a revolutionary feature, function, etc. Sometimes an existing advantage can be highlighted in a fresh way.
However, it is usually easier to find a competitive advantage when the product offers something genuinely new, which is then presented through the prism of solving a customer’s problem or as the answer to a problem.
Let’s also bear in mind that “We offer something new” usually works better than “We offer something better”. Experience shows that it is much easier to create interest among potential customers when we offer something fresh or different than when we put our product side by side with others but want to be better or stand out in one of the comparative criteria.
When new things are announced, everyone listens; or rather, everyone who is not completely satisfied with the existing supplier. But when we say we have “something even better”, the market is sceptical. Of course, because they are all banging the same horn about being better … and we customers learned long ago not to fall for such promises.
Remembering that we don’t want to educate potential customers, but rather offer them something they are already looking for. Or, as we also say, follow the dialogue that is already going on in the buyer’s mind; let’s not instil something new in them.
But how should we go about it in practice? Let’s start from an existing desire or problem, which we describe very precisely.
This step is very important and too often neglected, because it is through describing the problem that the potential customer has that we establish a genuine and deep relationship with them. The more accurately and consistently we describe the problem, the more the customer identifies with it… and the more they listen to us.
The successful American entrepreneur Eben Pagan said that if we are able to describe a problem better than the interlocutor can, we inspire instant trust in the latter: if we know the problem so well, the interlocutor believes that we know the solution.
Here’s another secret to a successful presentation. The way the information is delivered also depends on how far the interlocutor has gone in finding a solution. He may only be aware that he has a problem. In this case, we won’t talk about the product (yet), but we will start at the beginning: we will shed light on the problem from several angles and list possible solutions.
If the interlocutor has reached this stage, we will no longer talk about the problem, as he/she is (already) well aware of it. We will start from the possible solutions and – perhaps by comparing their strengths and weaknesses – we will identify the best one.
Or the interlocutor may already be determined that they want a specific solution, but are still deciding between providers. In such situations, we will not talk about the problem or all the options for solving the problem, but simply point out how our product stands out from the rest.
Not only does the presentation have to be adapted to the different levels of awareness of the problem or the search for a solution, but also the dynamics of the presentation and the language or choice of concepts to be highlighted. (By the way, sometimes these levels do not depend on the potential customers, but coincide with the development or maturity of the market.)
Without exception, every successful presentation is based on a stand-out guiding idea. Let’s look at a practical example.
An example of a leading idea in practice
A few years ago, a well-known language school in Ljubljana wanted to increase the number of students. Their guiding idea was not elaborated, because they offered the same things as the others: lectures were given by so-called “native speakers”, learning was done in small groups, the delivery of knowledge was based on an individual approach, and so on.
In short, since the interested parties had no other criteria by which to choose a provider, they chose according to price, location and the aggressiveness of the promotion. (Note: herein lies one of the main problems with the classical approach to marketing. Unless we announce a clear reason why an interested party should choose us, they will compare us with other providers, where price will play one of the key roles. If we want to hold our price and not bow to mass pricing trends in the market, we first need to establish a clear guiding idea).
After checking competing offers and a few meetings, we developed a guiding idea that was actually based on the wishes of the students and had never been offered before. It was fresh, unique and written to the skin of the stakeholders.
We found that most of the participants were sent by companies who wanted them to return with a certificate of successful completion. So many of them did not come to learn the language, but for a certificate …
The solution presented itself: why not advertise the end result, not the process?
The previous (bland) slogan has been replaced by the following: ‘Diploma Guarantee: we guarantee everyone who registers for the course a pass in the final exam. If you don’t pass the exam the first time, we will teach you free of charge and intensively until you do.”
Of course, the guarantee was based on their (remarkable) statistics: on average, only three out of a hundred failed the exam at the first attempt…
And the result? The language school filled its capacity practically overnight. (By the way, the competition didn’t even know about the campaign, as the offer was not advertised publicly, but only directly to the target customers.)
As we can see, the service itself – the language course – was not revolutionary, nor was it an improved version of an existing one, as almost all language schools offered a programme of comparable quality. What tipped the balance was a clearly articulated promise – a guarantee of the end result – that elevated this language school above the competition.
Or, as Dan Kennedy, the “father of modern marketing” would say, this school has moved from the category of foreign language providers to a whole new category – that of a single provider. By being the only one on the market with their offer, and at the same time effectively offering what the market was actually looking for, they succeeded.
Presentation through attributes, benefits (advantages) and implied benefits
Let’s mention a few more fundamentals of the structure of the presentation itself. The latter can be based on the features of a product, on the advantages or benefits, or on the implied (applied) benefits.
We have traditionally been taught to start with attributes and then build on them to create benefits. For example – let’s take a cosmetic product – like this: “This cream contains a lot of active substances that provide the skin with building blocks, so it looks firmer”.
Effective presentations are not based on features and benefits, but on the final impact.
So we first present the result, and use the unique advantages of the product to answer the question “How is this even possible?”, or. “What does this product contain that allows me to achieve the result you have just presented?”.
So, first “sell” the result to the interlocutor (if possible, with evidence – say, your own experience – or an effective demonstration of how the product works), and only then present the product’s features.
Because when the interlocutor accepts the result, his/her desire for the product is strengthened, and many reservations and objections fall away. All that is needed is a logical explanation of why this effect is possible. And then it is time to explain the exceptional ingredients, the unique production process and so on.
Let’s look at an example. First, we will illustrate how a product can be presented through features, then through benefits and then through implied benefits.
Let’s move on to a cream that promises more youthful skin. If we describe it in terms of properties, we will talk about miracle aloe vera, dead sea minerals, organic herbs and so on. This type of presentation requires the listener to add two and two in his or her head, or to build up a picture of the benefits of this property and the end result.
So, simply stating what a cream contains does not tell the user much until they answer the question of what is the advantage of these ingredients over others.
It is better to offer the cream through its advantages or benefits. In this case, we will not talk about the ingredients, but about the effect of the ingredients. For example, the skin is tightened and made more elastic, wrinkles are reduced, imperfections are eliminated, etc.
That’s better, but there is a higher level: storytelling, in which we bring the user – or rather, the user – closer to the final picture, or the actual effect in practice; what will change or happen in her life after she has used this cream for a while.
For example: “On your graduation anniversary, you will be questioned about whether you have had cosmetic surgery… You will become popular and your female colleagues will turn to you for advice… Because you will exude a new self-confidence, you will have more energy and a more positive outlook on the world… You will be attracted to much younger men…. You’ll be able to stand up for yourself and express what you really want and feel without restraint; you might even ask for a pay rise or tell your partner what you really want in a relationship and stop making concessions ‘to keep the peace in the house’ … With a burst of fresh energy, you’ll revive youthful aspirations and goals because you’ll feel you can do anything… You’ll reawaken your zest for life, you’ll smile a lot more, you’ll look forward to the little things, you’ll be grateful for the little things and you’ll enjoy every moment immensely.”
Of course, these claims should be the result of the experience of the users and not just a marketing ploy.
The key to creating conviction: dramatic presentation
Finally, let us mention the “king of demonstration”: the demonstration or explanation of how it works. There is nothing more convincing than an actual demonstration of a problem being solved or a wish being fulfilled.
There is a well-known story about the rise of Otis, a company that manufactures elevators. Until the mid-nineteenth century, cities did not expand more than a few storeys because lifts were not considered safe enough. To convince the nation otherwise, in 1854 Mr Otis designed an open four-storey elevator and installed it in a prestigious fairground.
In the presence of a curious crowd, he climbed in, reached the top and ordered his assistant to cut the cables holding the lift. To the amazement of the crowd, the lift did not plunge into the depths, but merely swung, descended a few tens of centimetres and stopped.
This dramatic presentation opened up new dimensions for construction and architecture.
Today, in an age of visual media and distraction, demonstration is even more important. Many companies are mass-marketing their products on the basis of this element alone.
For example, Blendtec, a company that makes powerful kitchen blenders, illustrates their effectiveness with videos of them blending mobile phones, tablets, hockey sticks, remote controls, etc.
Festina proves the long-lasting waterproofness of its wristwatches by selling them in bags filled with water and so on.
In short, let’s get the message across through an exciting new development. Contrary to the common belief that we are attracted to useful information, we are actually attracted to something that evokes emotions; especially if it is something new, special or exciting.
Only when we are drawn in by something do we turn on the logical part of our brain and listen to the arguments.
4. Business environment
All the points just described are important and should be considered before we start marketing. But let’s not forget the big picture, which can undo a lot of the effort we have put in.
The fact is that a good product that virtually sells itself – possibly without a competing offer – makes it much easier for us to do business. It is also true that the better the product or the greater the demand for it, the worse the conditions that can accompany it (read: late delivery, apathetic or even irritable salespeople, broken promises, process problems, etc.).
The other conditions that accompany the product are also excellent: mass availability (available in several locations), a good – possibly promotional – offer or price (for example, you buy one, you get the other for half price), purchase conditions (instalment payment, deferred payment, etc.), the possibility of a preliminary trial, the possibility of testing or returning the product free of charge, an extended warranty, free delivery, and so on.
Let’s also keep in mind the less obvious things. For example, the company’s long-term market presence and visibility. We can no longer build successful sales on this alone, but people are still more inclined to work with someone they have worked with, know or trust. The same applies to brands.
On the other hand, the past can also bury us. If we don’t have a great reputation with potential customers, even enhanced marketing approaches and top-notch presentations won’t help us much. In this day and age, when we are connected to a large global village through the World Wide Web and especially through social media and online contacts (read: information spreads instantly; especially bad information), we are in the public eye all the time.
We mentioned a little while ago that the potential superiority or monopoly of a product gives us a little more room to manoeuvre, or not to take good care of our customers. However, in the long run, this always comes back to bite us, because people remember these unpleasant experiences.
And when there is competition with a comparable offer, they go there immediately. Then we usually have no idea where the cause lies – because we can’t connect the dots: Customers left not because of our recent activities or because of the competition’s promotion, but because of the cumulative effect of all the unpleasant experiences they had with us.
Or maybe even just because of one bad experience that happened to them years ago. But because they had nowhere to go then, they stayed with us. Now that the first opportunity has presented itself, they have left; perhaps even in spite of a slightly less affordable offer from the competition.
So let’s do our best today, because over time we will be able to claim the cumulative effect of our successful campaigns, our customer care and our sales integrity or promise-keeping.
After all, the customer does not expect miracles from us. We just meet their expectations – or offer a little more than we promise – and take good care of them even when things don’t go smoothly, or when there is a short-circuit.
Just as you meet a friend in an accident, customers appreciate it when we go out of our way for them, even if it’s not exactly dictated by the law or our terms and conditions.
At the end of the day, it’s still just a relationship between two people; the more the interlocutor sees us as someone they value and trust, the easier the sale will be.
This article is based on the books written by Boris Vene and Nikola Grubiša.