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There’s one client I work with closely who has recently updated their consulting staff KPIs to include products consultants sell directly to clients. Previously their consultants were measured solely on their hours billed with no measure for stuff they sold.

I ran through a workshop a couple of weeks ago with the consulting staff and we talked about some basic sales techniques and ways they can improve the way they interact with clients and how they can boost their sales KPIs.

I’m a big fan of Frank Kern and Mass Control. Frank explains in one of his videos that there are 3 key reasons why a client doesn’t buy your stuff. Since I saw this video a couple of years ago I have used Frank’s model almost daily. Frank’s course Mass Control isn’t cheap – he’s a smart guy and a brilliant online marketer and even if you don’t buy one of his courses, I’d recommend watching his free videos. So essentially there’s three reasons why clients don’t buy your stuff. Every single reason why someone doesn’t buy something from you can be summarised by one of the three points below:

1. They don’t want it enough
2. They have no money
3. They don’t trust you enough

1.  They don’t want it enough

A key point here you need to understand is that its not good enough that a client or potential client NEEDS what your selling – they have to WANT what you’re selling. Realistically, we have very few needs, you don’t need a big screen TV, you don’t need a brand new car, you don’t need that latest toy, gadget or thing. You WANT it. There’s nothing wrong with wanting. Almost from birth, we’re trained to consume and want continuously by the thousands of marketing and advertising messages we see each day but ultimately, when you break it down, its not the thing that you want, its what its going to do for you.

Once you understand that people don’t buy what they need, they buy what they want and what they want is not the product or service you’re selling, it’s the benefit they get from it, then you’ll have a much easier time selling more stuff. When you’re selling something to a customer, don’t tell them how it works, tell them about the benefit they’ll get from it, how the product or service is going to solve their problem or fix their pain.

2. They have no money

Pretty simple one – if the customer has no money, they can’t spend any money. This can be a really difficult problem to overcome, however, there are a couple of ways around this – by offering credit card payment options, leasing or interest free finance or offering the product as a recurring service, you may be able to overcome this obstacle.

One really common example of businesses overcoming this problem is electronics retailers offering no interest finance for 3 years. Another more recent example is SAAS (software as a service). Instead of selling you expensive software outright, companies are now offering their software products on a rental style basis.

Particularly with the current state of the economy you’re going to come across this obstacle quite a bit – in the small business world one technique I’ve seen work well is offering credit card payments with no credit card surcharge or fees.

***BE CAREFUL!
Offering credit terms out of your own pocket ultimately doesn’t overcome this problem – if the customer has no money 30 or 45 days after you’ve invoiced them then they still can’t pay you and you could be left out to dry.

3. They don’t trust you enough

No matter how much someone wants something or how much money they have, if they don’t trust you they won’t buy from you. Trust really boils down to whether they trust that you can deliver the product as you say you can or you can provide a service your selling. Trust can take a long time to build and can be destroyed in an instant – all it takes is one mistake or one missed promise and you’ve destroyed the trust that you’ve built with the client over months or years. By being consistent in everything you do, being honest, never over-promising and by identifying potential pitfalls in advance you’ll be well on your way to building a solid foundation that you can build trust on.

Leveraging the model to your advantage….

Something to point out here is that the three reasons for not buying model is completely interlinked. What you’ll find is that more of one of them (more money, more trust or a bigger want) will offset the other two. For example, if you have a good relationship with one of your clients and they have a lot of trust for you, you’ll find that you don’t have to sell them as hard (aka create a want/solve a problem) or you can charge a higher price and they’ll still buy. Likewise, if they have bucketloads of cash you probably won’t need to sell as hard to build as much trust to get them to commit. Lastly, you’ll likely know this from your own personal experience that if the want is big enough, you’ll pay any price and buy from anyone willing to sell you.

So remember, sell the benefit, not the product, spend time building up relationships and trust with your clients and offer more flexible payment options or build alternate products and services around a recurring product model and if you do this consistently, you’ll see more sales and greater profitability in your business.

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