And why you need all of them.
There are 4 things when paired together in business, will get you sales 100% of the time.
But they only work when they are all together.
By themselves, they work some of the time but together they work every time.
I call them the 4 “R”s of business.
The Right Message, in front of the Right Audience, at the Right Time, produces the Right Result.
I’ll break each down one by one and then we will look at how to put them all together in your business.
The Right Message is an essential starting point.
If you don’t have the right message you will rarely reach your prospects.
The right message is never about features and technical specifications.
No one buys because the flux capacitors have a dingle arm spring.
But if the flux capacitor, with the dingle arm spring, keeps the machine that makes GI Joe dolls working perfectly, tell me that I can make more money because I can sell more GI Joe dolls.
Tell me about the uptime on the machine, tell me about how much more cash I can make and tell me how awful my life is when the machine goes down.
Make me feel downright sick over the fact that the machine is a constant failure.
Make me feel bad about the failure and then make me desire the solution to my problem.
Make me thankful that there is a solution and that you offer the solution.
People will buy from you for 2 main reasons, because you can solve a problem for them or because you can make their lives better.
Craft your message around these two reasons and you will have the Right Message.
The next step is to get your message in front of the Right Audience.
Do you know who you are targeting?
Do you know their average age, income, background, shoe size, are they 30 to 40 years old, do they have grey hair and on and on.
If you are not specific on your target audience it makes it very hard to find them.
How can you find something you can’t describe.
You need to know exactly who you are targeting and then your message will not fall on deaf ears.
For instance, let’s say you sell to business owners.
Define what type, how many employees they have, how many square feet in their facility, what are the biggest challenges they face in their business, what problems are unique to them and then consider how your product or services solve their problem or make their lives better.
When you dig deep into knowing who your ideal customer is and what makes them tick, you will find selling to them to be much easier.
If you have trouble with this I have something that will help.
One of the exercises I like to do at live events is to have the people in the room describe their perfect customer in great detail.
This is someone you are currently doing business with and you love working with them.
They always are happy with your company, they never badger you on price and they always pay you on time every time.
Perhaps your personalities gel and you have really hit it off.
You like your conversations with this person and you always feel better after serving them.
Then describe the customer that you absolutely detest doing business with, the one who always makes your life miserable, who makes you cringe when they call and who never seems to want to pay your price.
Now declare your winner.
It’s pretty easy to figure out who you would love to do business with on a daily basis.
Yeah Dave, but how do I find them?
Good question, you craft your message around the one you love and how you solve their problem or make their life better, then when you advertise you will attract them to your business.
I’ll give you an example.
I heard about a liquor store who got some really bad press for running ads on the radio.
They offered free delivery for select customers.
Their ad was very short.
Do you know what it said?
Do you have a drinking problem?
Call and then their phone number.
I laughed so hard the first time I heard the story because naturally there is a stigma with alcoholism but it’s still funny because it is targeted their perfect customer.
You want to be that targeted with your message and get it in front of the Right Audience and you are on your way.
Timing is everything in business.
The right message in front of the right audience has to get to them at the Right Time.
If the timing is not right then it doesn’t matter how much your product or service can make their lives better.
They could have all the problems in the world that you can solve they aren’t going to buy.
Your product might be able to save someone hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
If it costs $100,000 to purchase and your client doesn’t have the money and has no way to finance they can’t buy from you.
So how on earth do you know the right timing?
You don’t.
No one has a crystal ball, well some people do, but they can’t see the future any better than you and me.
You will never know the right time so the solution is to keep your message in front of them so when they are ready they know you are the expert they are seeking.
When it comes to marketing, frequency makes the heart grow fonder.
When you know your target audience, and you have the right message with social media and advertising you can keep your message in front of your target audience but it is far easier to keep your message in front of them if they are on your email list.
Offer your target audience something they are seeking in exchange for their name and e-mail address.
If they are in your target, they will agree to the exchange, if they are not, they won’t.
I’m not talking about spam, I’m talking about providing quality content to keep them engaged with you so when the timing is right they will know where to turn.
People will always seek an expert.
You don’t have to be the only expert, you simply have to be the one your ideal prospect knows about.
Finally, when you have the right message, in front of the right audience, at the right time you will get the Right Result.
The Right Result is whatever you want it to be.
The right result might be a small purchase or a large purchase.
It might be you provide information in exchange for their name and email address and then you rinse and repeat until they make a purchase.
Too many people want their marketing to do the impossible.
If you sell high dollar product and services, it’s highly unlikely you will get your customer to agree to purchase from you until they trust you on a very high level.
They must believe that you can solve their problem or make their life better before they spend all that money with you.
So you might have to use what I call the ladder principal.
You provide a small solution to a small problem in exchange for something small, like a name and e-mail address.
As time goes along you build rapport and trust by giving them more value and eventually they move up the ladder to the final result.
Some of the prospects will leave along the way but they are not your perfect customer which is why they leave in the first place.
The end result is you get more customers like the one you described as your favorite.
Isn’t this the customer you want anyway?
I should think so.
I use the 4 R’s in my business and so should you.
You can automate most of it and when you do your life will become a lot more fun.
A direct response customer acquisition system is what I call the automation because it brings in customers on autopilot.
Would you like to find out how you can build a direct response customer acquisition system for your business?
If so I’d like to discuss your goals one on one.
No sales pitch I promise.
To schedule a call with me click here.
To your lifelong prosperity,
David Mulvaney