Get your message across (4)

Caroline’s Club is not only a club for professional advisers to meet and collaborate to win business using a strategic digital business development tool. It is also where our members discover, through our online training program and coaching, how to get their message across without causing resistance.

In this episode, we will introduce you to the innate fear of resistance to strangers. This fear is our discomfort when others are ‘pushing product’.

Subconsciously, in a ‘selling’ situation, the buyer asks themselves two questions: ' How do I feel about you? ' and ‘Can I trust you not to take advantage of me?’

Everyone knows what it feels like to be stuck talking with someone who wants to sell you something. The overwhelming feeling is, ‘Get me out of here’. A salesperson who is used to ‘cold calling’ is familiar with rejection, so this resistance does not bother them - but many of us have a greater need to be liked and do not like the reaction they get when they are ‘selling’ their services! 

This fear pops up whatever you are selling: meat, shoes, or advice.

However, cold calling is not a total waste of time because the first time the buyer hears about your services or products, 1-3 % of people will be interested and want you to say more. Each time the seller connects with the buyer, the resistance decreases slightly. However, most sellers are not sufficiently persistent to close the sale. They stop pestering after the second or third attempt.

It takes between 5 and 12 ‘touches’, communications, or meetings before the innate fear of strangers' influence begins to subside. Advertising understands this basic psychological principle. The product or service is positioned in a public position (making maximum benefit of aggregation—see below) and repeated. As the product or service becomes familiar, the likelihood of the buyer reaching out for the brand when they next feel they need it increases.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that building a network that refers clients to a professional relying only on familiarity to reduce the fear of product push takes years. This lengthy process is why only 12% think they are good at it. 

Luckily, there are four ways to sidestep this fear, which, if adopted, will put you ahead of 88% of the competition. Once you are aware of these four ways, you can see examples of them everywhere

• Education.

• Aggregation.

• Reciprocation and

• Case studies

Education is a form of ‘consultative selling’. In this method, you find a topic related to your expertise and express it in a manner the audience can relate to. The secret is not to tell your audience what you want to say but to speak to them about what they want to hear. 

Professionals passionate about their expertise must be careful not to fall into the mistaken belief that if they find their subject fascinating, others will as well—they don’t. If you tell rather than educate, you will be boring.

Education should be focused on what worries your clients or your network's clients, often called ‘Poke the Pain’. It takes them from where they are to where you want them to be.

Learning the difference between education and product push takes some practice, but knowing it is essential to winning new clients.

Caroline’s Club gives its members plenty of opportunities to educate other members and potential clients through podcasts and blogs. Because Caroline’s Club is an online digital platform, we can tell you what content is being read and what is being overlooked.

Aggregation

The power of aggregation is not intuitive unless you understand that people have an innate fear of the influence of strangers and hate ‘product push’, being sold to or influenced by strangers. 

Many Professionals say they want exclusivity. Ironically, they are more likely to be spotted if they mingle with their competitors in a place where their target market will see them than if they were the only experts on the platform.

Benetton was one of the first retailers to look into the power of aggregation. He started out making brightly coloured woolly jumpers that he sold in Italy. He experimented, putting a woolly jumper shop on every major street in one town while in another town, he put all the shops together on one street. The shops in the latter town sold almost twice the number of woolly jumpers as the other one. This was because people knew that if they wanted a bright red woolly jumper, they could find it on a particular street.

Evidence of the power of aggregation is everywhere. 

Bond Street is where you shop for designer clothes, the farmer’s market for local organic fresh food, and Arlington Arcade for cashmere. 

‘Public relations’ is more powerful than writing the same material in your firm’s marketing material or website. Having a quote in a newspaper with quotes from competitors is more powerful, not because it is written by a journalist - who is not an expert in your area of expertise - but because your message is aggregated with similar service providers.

Caroline’s Club is a powerful neutral aggregation platform for its members' marketing material. Members are encouraged to collaborate with other professionals who serve the same client type.

To further enhance this power, Caroline’s Club encourages its members to compile case studies through ‘Perfect Pitch’ events. These pitches serve multiple other purposes beyond aggregation, which we will explore in future episodes.

Reciprocation

Reciprocation means giving, so the person receiving the gift feels obliged to give something back. Strange as it may seem, most feel the need to reciprocate very strongly.

A waitress who gives a diner a sweet or mint when delivering the bill will be tipped significantly more than without. Another example is that if a child is given a balloon as they enter a restaurant, the overall family bill increases by 25%.

The same is true of free samples in a shop. If you are given a free sample, you are more inclined to buy the product, not because you have tried it and are convinced that you want it, but because you feel a sense of indebtedness, which you feel obliged to reciprocate.

This is why an invitation to coffee lets you mention what you do for your clients. They have given you something to drink, and the recipient feels obliged to allow you to talk about what you do for your clients.

Caroline’s Club offers members a discount for membership, which they can give to colleagues in the same firm or contacts in other firms with similar clients for whom they would like to work. Developing a good working relationship with contacts and colleagues through events like perfect pitches and offering a discount to membership is a strong form of reciprocation.

Case Studies

The most underused and yet best way to win new business is through case studies or telling stories. Everyone loves a story, and it will not trigger the innate fear of the influence of strangers or ‘pushing product’, because it is not talking at you. It is talking about someone else - like you.

Case studies are 1,227% more likely to be read than articles with no human content. 

Of course, it is essential that the client's identity is not disclosed by changing the name, circumstances, age, and family situation, and it must be clear of any details that could identify the client. If you follow these rules, case studies are compelling and entirely compliance-friendly.

Case studies are frequently included in websites and brochures, but if they are not published on a neutral, independent platform, they will not be read as eagerly as if aggregated with others.

Case studies are also essential, as we have said before, because the client criterion, which makes the problem and solution come alive by embedding them into a story, can be analysed through browsing or indirectly using algorithms to identify the client types served by our members.

Caroline’s Club, therefore, encourages its members to write their case studies in an engaging and exciting manner that also identifies the client type most likely to encounter the problem their skill and expertise can resolve.

In next week’s episode, we will explore how you get noticed in a crowd over and above your competitors and how Caroline’s Club has introduced features to enable you to showcase these features.

If you would like to find out more, please phone Caroline’s Club on 07979 188288. We will then send you a short 4-5 page review on the problem Caroline’s Club addresses, the solution it provides, how it does so, and who it benefits. We are keen to hear from you with your comments and feedback.