Selling the right product or service is not always easy but your results will generally be reflection of your tactics/actions. Your actions and/or tactics tend to reflect your mindset. So, it’s important we look at this in a little more detail:
1. YOU’RE NOT SELLING A PRODUCT
This may seem like a little bit of an oxymoron, considering the title of the blog is about selling your product/service. The truth is you’re not actually selling a product. This will become clearer when you think about it from your customer’s perspective. From your customer perspective, they are not buying your product or service. They are buying a benefit, a result, a solution, or relief.
Your customers are buying what they want. Now there are some studies that suggest what customers or humans want in general can at times be deemed irrational or emotional, but it’s what they want. And what they want is not the product.
As the business owner it is easy to get into the logical approach/reasons for people to buy our products. We fall in love with our products. But our customers are not buying products. From your perspective you are selling a benefit, a result, a solution or relief. Something that your customer wants. Never forget this. Very crucial mindset.
2. YOUR PRODUCT IS AN OBSTACLE TO YOU CUSTOMER’S NEEDS
Now what does this mean? Think of it this way, every customer has an outcome they want to achieve. For example, if we were playing a board game, we might start on square 1 and the goal would be to get to square 100 to win the game. Through playing this game, you may go through a series of different courses or paths to get to your destination. To digress, your customer is at the beginning of the game (journey), and they would like to get to the end. Your product is in the middle. In this game analogy, your product is almost like the wall or even obstacle they must go over or around, to get to where they really want to go. They don’t really want the product; they want the outcome or the result on the other side so to speak. To really drive it home, they don’t want the car, they want a means to get from A to B reliably and maybe the potential social proof or admiration that may come by purchasing it. Technically the car is the obstacle to what they want (it costs money and maintenance).
So whatever product or service you are offering, it’s not the magic solution you may led to believe (I appreciate from your perspective it might feel like it, you have had the ample time to fall in love with it😊). To your customer, who might be in a hurry or pressed for time, it’s one more additional thing they must do between them and the result they are trying to achieve.
When you take on this mindset, you stop making products that YOU love personally, and you stop marketing your product like it’s magical. You will learn to realise the only thing that matters is that your customers get what they want. The goal then becomes to create a product or service, that has the perception of being the easiest way for them to get what they want. Or you could say the lowest obstacle from their perspective. Remember you are trying to talk someone into buying something that they don’t want (the product/service) When you start thinking about your product as an obstacle, you will start targeting different types of solutions that really help people and talk about them in a way that makes sense to your customers.
3. CREATE A PRODUCT THAT SELLS ITSELF
Now if your product is technically an obstacle to your customers (something that is in the way of your customer getting what they need), a good question to ask would then be how do I create a product or service that sells itself? A product or service that triggers the response that the product is exactly what they need. Apple products are a very good example of this. If you take the time out to use their products, it will not take you much time to realise how user friendly they are and easy to use. Study the product and the response in yourself. Think about what makes it an easy decision for you to buy it. There are many examples of this in our everyday lives. I want you to think about it when you go out and you’re trying to find a solution to a problem or have one of your needs met. Notice when you hear about something or when you pick something up, and you get that click inside of yourself. Then try asking yourself, what was it that made that product sell itself? What was it? Then whatever it is, try and put that into marketing your product or service…
Customers want to be:
- Shown the product in action
- Told what’s included in the product
- Told how the product/service works
Ultimately you don’t want to have to use all energy to sell and persuade people to buy your product. The selling of your product should be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. The cake is the quality of the product/service and how it will benefit your customer.
Focus on applying these 3 mindsets and see how it affects your business goals and objectives!
Good luck!