Your Helping Business

THE BUYING PROCESS

Now we all know that people hate being sold to (or being ‘sold’ as the Americans say), but most people love to buy, and the 21st century is the age of the buyer.

The process we go through when we buy is quite simple and it matches the traditional ‘sales process’ but really it’s more like the two sides of a coin. The buyer sees one side and the salesperson the other – and they’re not quite the same.

The skills of selling and of buying come in reconciling these two points of view.

The five steps of the buying process – what you and I as buyers, do:

1. Identify a need or want for a specific or general benefit (this may be the result of advertising, which is part of marketing)

2. Carry out some research, sources of that benefit which may be different services, usually on the web to find those ‘solutions’ that most closely match our requirements and narrow it down to a few choices

3. Evaluate(or clarify) narrow this down to providers we ‘like the look of’ for some reason, maybe price, maybe location, maybe something else. It’s usually subjective, to find which is the best fit for us – or maybe the one we ‘want’ most.

4. Make the purchase decision when we decide to go ahead and buy it (or not) and who to buy it from. We make the purchase decision and buy

5. Post-purchase there are various behaviours that might follow, the most common being a feeling of dissatisfaction or a concern about whether we’ve done the right thing. (known as ‘buyer’s remorse’) We review our decision, usually after delivery, but sometimes before, and either confirm or reverse their decision depending on their level of satisfaction with what we’ve have received (including the purchase ‘experience’)

As a business, to get people to purchase our services, what we do with both our marketing and sales processes is come around to the ‘buyer’s side’ and that means helping the buyer through their process, and, if we can, in the direction we’d like them to go.

So how does marketing match this ‘buying process’?

Marketing effort is required at all five stages

1. You will need to promote(not sell) the benefits of your offering to your target market as they may not yet have realised it is available or they might need or want it.

2. You have to make it easy for them to find you and provide the right information in the right way so that you will make it into the next stage.

3. You have to be convincing about the value and availability of your offering and how it will be delivered and perhaps add an incentive for buying from you – you have to ‘make friends’.

4. You have to make it very easy for them to buy, as simple a process as possible.

5. It’s essential as part of your marketing effort to remain engaged with the clients and follow up with them to continue the relationship. The last thing you want to do is (in old-fashioned terms) ‘close’ or end that relationship!

THE 5 C’s OF SALES

Matching the buying process is a corresponding ‘sales’ process which isn’t the ‘traditional’ sales process, but a combination of the process developed by David Sandler in 1967 and a system I was taught by Ed Ludbrook my Network Marketing coach back in the day (the 4 C’s). These are the five steps matching the buying process: Connect, Consult, Clarify, Confirm, Consolidate.

Connect
The first step is to use lead generation (described next) to create a ‘warm list’ of people who might be potential clients. We get to the point where we need to talk to them. There is no way around this. In our sector we need to talk to our clients before we take them on because we may decide we don’t want to work with them or there may be a colleague who is better suited for their needs.

The last ‘call to action’ in our lead generation process is to invite them to a ‘clarity call’ if we’re going to speak online or a ‘coffee chat’ (as Ed calls it) if we’re going to talk to them face to face. This is the first step; remember they are only at stage one of their buying process.

Consult
This is probably the most important step and unlike ‘traditional’ sales this is where the ‘sale is closed’ (although we never think in those terms!). The ‘consultation or the clarity call/coffee chat is where we find out what the potential client is looking for and discover their ‘pain’. What are they wanting to get away from?

At ‘first contact’ before we’ve established a relationship with them as a client there is always a ‘pain’ – they are ‘away motivated’. Even though we may find they have a potential solution in mind they wish to ‘get to’ they always feel the need to ‘get away’ from something first and as coaches, therapists and healers it’s our job to help them make that happen.

In the consult stage we are not telling them what we can do, we’re finding out what they think they need or want but as yet we’re not offering any solutions. All we do (and sometimes it’s not easy) is to ask questions. As Allan Pease puts it in his book of the same name ‘Questions are the Answers’.

Find out now whether they are in a position to make a decision on going ahead or whether they might have to consult someone else first for any reason.

We end this section with something very special invented by David Sandler. It’s called the ‘up front contract’. Ask the potential client what they really want, as Mary Morrissey puts it ‘what would they love’, in their lives right now if it were possible. We get then to make a statement of intent in this way (without pushing) and then end up with words like “If I could show you how, working together, I could help you achieve that, would you be willing to go ahead?” If they say no, then end the conversation there, finish the coffee and talk about the weather, they are not suitable to work with. Most times people will say ‘yes’, and we go on to the next step.

Clarify
Now we don’t tell them the whole story about what we do and how it works and all the other information we have about the intricacies of our process and so on. All we do is explain to them clearly how we can help with their specific requirement. We need to be really clear and explain the process we would go through together simply.

Make it sound really easy and painless. Make it sound like fun.

We explain what we do only in the context of what they think they are looking for. Even if we have a suspicion what they are presenting with is not the ‘real’ problem, we just go along with how they see it – for now. We’ll uncover the real reasons and all sorts of other things once we get started on our ‘treatment’.

If they ask further questions answer simply or respond with a ‘neutral’ question like “meaning?” or pause and then say “go on”. (This technique is well described in Allan Pease’s book). Finally establish an understanding they have all they need to make a decision and go to the next step.

‘Objections’ which might be raised are always ‘buying signals’ – they want to know more, not to argue. They may have preconceived ideas they want us to dispel. They are not arguing, they are asking. Keep that in mind and answer specific objections one by one. During this stage we should be pre-empting these objections in our explanation of what we can do to help them but we can’t envisage all objections because some are really obscure!

Confirm
Back to our question at the end of stage 2. Ask if they think working together would be helpful for them and then if they are ready to start now or at a later date. If they say no to the first part of the question ask why they think that, find out what the hidden objection might be.

They will probably ask about how much it’s going to ‘cost’. This takes us into a discussion of what they might think it’s ‘worth’ in terms of the person they will be or the additional freedom they will have after the ‘treatment’. We could ask about the cost to them of not doing it or we could compare the price we propose to charge (having not told them yet what that might be) with other things they may be spending their money on.

The price of a coaching programme vs. the price of a holiday. The price of a hypnotherapy session vs. the price of a meal out and so on. You could also explore the possibility of barter, is there something they could do for you in return?

Depending on our pricing policy we can then come to a figure and then discuss how it could be paid, lump sum or instalments and so on. We will reach an agreement with most people but there will always be some who will opt out and we should expect that. Remember though, having come this far with an individual we can always go back maybe in a couple of months’ time – during which there requirement will have become more urgent – and suggest we talk again.

If the client agrees to the terms, they’ll now ‘sign up’ using whatever procedure you have for this. Once that’s been achieved, we move on to the next stage.

Consolidate
Remember step five of the buying process – ‘post purchase’? Sometimes clients come back a day or so after stage four to say they’ve changed their mind and want to cancel. In a few cases they may have a valid reason but usually it’s that ‘post purchase dissonance kicking in.

We want to avoid this happening so it’s vital we follow up in some way immediately after the Confirm stage and a good way of doing this is to give them something, something they weren’t expecting, preferably something relevant to the engagement they now have with you as a client – some form of ‘welcome pack’. If we have coaching or ‘course’ materials for example, we supply them now rather than consigning them ‘to the post’.

We may have offered bonuses during the lead generation process, again supply them now. What this does is to lock them in (in the nicest possible way) to our client community but there’s more to do in this ‘follow up’.

Ed would probably have named this stage ‘Coaching’ in the sense of helping clients understand who we are, what we do and what we represent – their ‘way forward. Even if we are providing a coaching service there is other coaching we can do, there are other ways we can help.

Within the Freedom Academy community there are a huge range of skills we may be able to call on should the client discover or reveal some other requirement we cannot personally meet – but we know, or can quickly find, someone who can.

It’s essential, having worked so hard to establish this relationship to maintain and grow it so we become their ‘go to’ person for everything in coaching, therapy and healing and aren’t distracted by the ‘bright shiny object’ offers they’ll find ‘out there’. Coach, healer or therapist, you or I become their guide, mentor, friend and confidant in all things pertaining to ‘our world’.

When to Stop
Just one more thing. At any stage in this process we may get a ‘stop’ signal from the potential client. This is either a ‘no, I don’t want to talk about this any more’ or an ‘I’ve heard enough, I’m ready to go ahead’. Their body language tells us which it is. If it’s the latter skip straight to the end of the Confirm stage and welcome them aboard.