How to Know What Your Market Wants
Dear Marketing Maven,
In Maxim #4, we looked at the most effective principle of persuasion: “You can get anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.”
So, the key question becomes…
How do you find out what people want?
There are two different answers to this question, based on whether you’re selling in person (one-on-one) or via advertising, when you want to influence an entire marketplace at once.
In person-to-person selling, it’s easy. Just ask! When you’re sitting right there in front of live prospects, sound them out before you start selling anything.
That’s the advice of one of the greatest little books ever published on effective salesmanship, Harry Browne’s classic, “The Secret of Selling Anything: A road map to success for the salesperson who is not aggressive, who is not a ‘smooth talker’ and who is not an extrovert.”
Harry was a consummate “big picture” kind of guy, a brilliant simplifier and best-selling author whose books on investing, economics, and politics helped millions of people understand—with the clarity of mountain spring water—any subject he wrote about. Famous for his “live-and-let-live” libertarian philosophy, he ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1996 and 2000 and received a surprisingly large number of votes.
Harry made his living as a salesman, and he was so good at it, he outsold virtually everyone else he worked with, while putting in far fewer hours.
He could do this because he had discovered a remarkably powerful and easy method for selling anything. His approach was so simple, he believed that anyone could quickly become a master salesperson without being aggressive, manipulative, dishonest, persistent, extroverted, glib, confident, or even hardworking.
Harry Browne’s Secret of Selling Anything
According to Browne:
“Probably 99 out of 100 salespeople try to motivate their prospects. And that’s their mistake. You’re not capable of motivating anyone, no matter how persuasive you think you are…
“Everyone is already motivated. The only question is ‘By what?’ Your job is to find out what it is that motivates your prospects. And then show them how they can get what they want through your product or service. Only then will they buy…
“Most sales are lost by salespeople who present their product before they know what motivates their prospects…”
Browne advises that you never assume that your product or service is right for every person out there, so don’t be dishonest and pretend that it is. That turns people off.
Rather, when you’re in front of a prospect and before you sell anything, probe for their strongest motivation. Browne gives many examples in his book on how to do this tactfully. But a typical example would be something like, “Mr. or Ms. Prospect, what is your greatest concern about XYZ?” (For “XYZ,” fill in the blank with whatever area of life your product or service is designed to enhance.)
Browne’s Basic Rule Is, Don’t Start Selling until You Know What the Buyer Wants to Buy
Otherwise, you could start your presentation selling benefit A, which is of little interest to your prospect, while he or she would have jumped all over benefit B, which you never even thought to mention.
But let’s say you’re a marketer or copywriter whose mission is to persuade large numbers of people at once. How do you translate Browne’s magnificent insight to leverage your sales?
That’s what we’ll look at in our next Maxim.
In the meantime, always remember:
Maxim #5:
“Before you start selling, find out what the buyer wants.”
Sincere wishes for a good life and (always!) higher response,
Gary Bencivenga
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