Article: What Business People Want
I recently watched the movie “What Women Want” starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. Mel’s character receives a shock from an electric hair dryer falling in his bathtub and wakes up to discover he can hear the thoughts of women.
Here’s the question I was struck with after watching the movie:
What if I could hear the thoughts of business people?
What if, as you were selling your product to someone, you could hear their approval or disapproval, their objections and concerns, their thought process related to your service? The fact is, if you have been selling for longer than a few years, you probably can practically hear the thoughts of your clients. I know that the typical business owner (one of my ideal clients) has three main concerns:
- Increased Revenue
- Decreased Expenses
- Increased Profitability or Efficiency
They then have a myriad of minor concerns. I can then use this information to create a marketing message about my service that tells my Ideal Client, a business owner, how I accomplish one of those three things.
After we create that marketing message, how do we use that with our network? We share it with them is the obvious answer. But how do we share it with them? First, I want to clearly identify my Ideal Client. I sell to business owners but what else?
- In what industry is this particular ideal client (many of us have multiple types of ideal client)?
- What are the top five industries where you can find this ideal client?
- What are the concerns and objections my ideal client typically has?
- How do I address those concerns?
Our job as a networker is to help our network understand how our Ideal Client thinks. And then we take the next step and help them understand what our Ideal Client wants. Take a moment right now to choose one of your ideal clients, list their top three concerns, write down a marketing message about how you solve that concern, and then write down the answers to the four questions above that give us insight into how your client thinks. And then for the grand finale, why not print this out and bring it to your next leads group meeting and pass it around to your members.
Happy Networking,
Mark Hiatt
