“TAKE MY MONEY!” … If you want prospects to shout that at you as they throw money your way, today’s issue is going to be especially interesting to you!
I’m sitting here on the couch with my daughter, who is feeling a bit under the weather. So today’s issue is likely to be (a little) shorter than most. And yet, it won’t be any less valuable — I promise! (In fact, it’s probably far MORE valuable, by the nature of the subject.)
Today I’m going to talk about a principle you can apply to your entire business and your selling, to make you almost irresistible to money.
I know that sounds like a grand promise. But don’t make too harsh a judgment until you hear me out — then decide…
What prospects want most (and are willing to pay a premium for)…
Today, I’m going to talk about one of three elements that I try to work into any sales pitch. Because these are pretty much universal hot-buttons that sway people toward purchase.
Fast, easy, and free.
Commit those to memory, and you’ll sell more. I promise.
If you can (legitimately) promise fast, easy, and free — or, cheap — results, your proposition will be immediately perceived as more desirable than a similar solution that isn’t as fast, easy, or cheap.
There’s a lot of ways to get to all of these, but today we’re gong to ignore fast and cheap.
For now, we’re going to talk about easy…
Making life “easy” or “simple” is the #1 most powerful selling proposition today…
I have to give credit to my colleague Perry Marshall for really turning me on to this. His work with Richard Koch (author of The 80/20 Principle) led him to this. And when he was launching his high-level Simplify.fm consulting service with Richard, he reached out to me for how best to present his message.
That’s when I started looking around at just how powerful and impactful this principle is…
Take the iPhone. It took access to a computer and the internet — and all that comes with it — and simplified it down to one button and a touch screen.
Or Uber. It took having to look up a local taxi service, call them, ask for a car, wait for the car to show up (sometimes 30+ minutes), have cash or a card to pay the driver (hoping they took a card), and who knows how many other hassles, and simplified it down to a few finger taps on your smart phone.
Or Google. It took having to know where to go to look up information on many different sites on the internet, and simplified it down to a text box and a button.
The financial newsletter industry, which I’ve done a lot of work with, offers another kind of simplification. Rather than you having to go out and search for stocks to invest in, they deliver the research, analysis, and recommendation straight to you, and track the company and stock as part of a recommended portfolio.
… It goes on. The more you simplify life for your clients and customers, the more appealing your offers become.
Usually simple for your customer is not simple for you — but that’s part of why it’s so powerful…
There’s a lot of thinking that goes into making something simple.
Sometimes, there are complex processes and systems that have to be working behind the scenes so that the “front stage” experience is smooth and effortless.
Take Siri, for example — the Artificial Intelligence “assistant” on the iPhone. The ideal experience of Siri — or comparable services — is being able to talk into your phone, and get just the right answer, no matter what your question is.
That’s simple.
But for that to happen, there needs to be incredibly complex algorithms taking place behind the scenes. To understand your speech. To understand from the words you said what it is you mean or want. From that, to determine where to find the answer or solution.
All of that is complex. So the customer experience can be simple.
Done right, this creates a high barrier to entry…
The harder you have to work to make your customer’s experience simple, the less likely it is you’ll come in and get knocked off by a competitor.
For example, Amazon.com. Get almost anything you want, delivered to your doorstep as soon as tomorrow (in some cities, later today).
There’s incredible complexity that goes into creating such a simple proposition. Product sourcing. Distribution. Infrastructure. Warehouses and shipping centers in every corner of their geographic markets. Relationships with multiple carriers that allow them to make and keep specific delivery promises. Operations in their warehouses that let them know, up to the minute, when someone can order and still get their product shipped on time to fulfill their delivery promises.
All of this coordinated into an intricately-designed, highly-coordinated, and fully-optimized system for fulfilling on that promise of simplicity. I buy my cat’s flea medicine on Tuesday, and I can be fully confident it will be delivered to my doorstep on Thursday. It takes seconds to place my order, and I don’t have to leave the house.
It’s no wonder then that Amazon does 4X the ecommerce revenue of the nearest competitor.
And, it’s becoming increasingly-hard to compete with Amazon. The system to create such a simple customer experience is too complex to be replicated in a day or a year (or maybe even a decade!).
Will someone come along and knock them off? Maybe. But it won’t be soon.
How to apply this to selling…
First and foremost, you can’t promise simple if your product or service won’t fulfill on it. It will just get you into trouble that you don’t need.
If you want to be able to make bold promises of simplicity in your selling, first go to work on your offering. What can you do to make results simpler? What can you do to make the customer experience easy?
Then, once you nail the product or service, it’s all about showing off the simplicity.
There are a million ways to do it — and the exact solution is unique to your situation. However, if you did the product or service bit right, it will start to sell itself. That is, as soon as the customer understands that you’re not making empty promises of simplicity, you won’t have to sell hard. They’ll be shouting… “Take my money.”
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
