Reaching Your Customers

How you communicate with your customers can make or break your business. This includes your non-verbal communication too. What does your lobby say about your store? Has your product packaging lost you a lot of sales? Your customers are people that you want to want to purchase your products, but never forget: at their core, they are still very human.

Human nature influences all of our decisions, whether it is from guilt, pleasure seeking, avoiding discomfort, or even envy. As a business, you need cater to the human inside your customers. There are several things you need to know about what motivates and guides the people buying – or not buying – what you’re selling.

To figure out how to reach your customers, you need to know how they think. Our brains are wired a certain way to best enhance our survivability. Now, the more primal functions of our brains are set up to survive in a more hostile – possibly -- but very nature-filled environment. Even though your store probably isn’t in a jungle, you can still tap into our more base motivations and use them for modern day selling.

Even though it seems obvious, you should take a hard look at the fact that people don’t pay attention to “boring” subjects. Of course, boring is subjective, but even the most interesting products to the most die-hard fans have some boring parts. The best way to look at this is to concentrate not on the possibly uninteresting facts, but on how you present those facts.

If you are planning a product poster, you obviously don’t want to fill it up with technical information, right? No, you want a snazzy picture of your product in the hands of a very satisfied – and attractive – customer. You want a few of the more exciting facts off to the side, with a way to get more information prominently displayed.

Numbers and statistics are specific danger areas for losing attention. These numbers, while very important to you, your company, and the industry, may reach far over the heads of the customers. When you are first courting a customer, you don’t want to shove every product spec down their throats, no matter how innovative it is. You should definitely provide avenues that they can follow -- or be guided -- to learn more. Truly exciting statistics and facts, however, don’t have to be left out, you just need to make sure you present them in an intriguing, almost unique manner.

For example, if your widget takes only five minutes to finish a task, you could simply point out that you can get your widget-service by the time your coffee machine finishes brewing. Now they have the widget memory tied with the smell of fresh coffee as well as how fast it is. You craft a mental picture in their mind that not only will they remember, but explains your sales point succinctly.

But what if your customer is in your store about to talk to a salesperson, or you are presenting your product in a meeting? Details without a context can lose your audience quickly. Right from the start, you must give them a reason to care about what is to follow. Only then will they pay attention to what makes your product so great.

How you present your information is almost more vital than the information itself, especially in one-on-one sales pitches or meeting presentations. First you must throw your audience a lifeline by letting them know the main theme. Telling them where you’re going will keep them looking for your point. Let them know how many points you will cover so they can keep themselves orientated. Before each point, reaffirm your main theme, and then start with the sub-main picture of the point.

It’s a tired – so tired – cliché, but a picture is worth a thousand words. Graphics send volumes more information than words could ever convey. Our brains want colors; want to see what you are talking about. The best way to harness this is to, of course, give them pictures and video. Incorporate your message into vibrant life in packaging, displays, and definitely presentations. Humans remember so much more visually rather than orally, so tap into that hardwired fact for better results.

But don’t forget mental pictures. It’s easy to knock words both spoken and written, but there are many times when a picture can’t be used. Instead, you must create a mental image in your customer’s minds. The reason for this is another human trait: we are influenced by our perceived environment, notions, and preconceptions. If we are told something is good, or the buying environment is nice, we will believe the main product is something we want, even sight unseen. The same goes for making us not want something.

Take a hard look at everything in your business that has any customer contact. Put yourself in their shoes and see how you feel. Does every part of the whole experience dealing with your company lead them to want to give you money? Humans can be difficult, illogical, and fickle, but if you know what buttons to push, you can get us to do, want, say, or buy anything.