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Emotional Responses

“The mind uses logic to justify what the heart has already decided.” -Roy H. Williams

The best way to get into the customer’s mind is through her heart. Tell stories. Share values. Speak to the emotions.

On the flip side, however, the best way to hold yourself back is to make business decisions based purely on emotions.

As independent retailers, we’ve all faced this dilemma. The product that a new manufacturer promised us would never be in the mass market was just spotted on the shelf at your local Target store. You’re mad. You just placed a $1000 order and now the product line is no longer “special”. Or you happened to get an email from a flash sale site showing one of your favorite products on sale for what you paid for it.

Your first instinct is to flame the manufacturer on the discussion boards, cancel orders, deep-discount your on-hand inventory and vow to never carry that line again.

Stop. Wait. Take a deep breath. You’re making an emotional response.

Before you make any decisions, do a little fact-checking. Are you still selling the product at the retail and turn-ratio that works for your store? Are your customers coming into your store expecting you to have this product? Do you believe in this product? Does this product fit into your image as a store?

If the answers to those questions are no, figure out a game plan to get rid of your excess inventory in a smart way. Find a replacement product that says yes. And move on.

Surprisingly, sometimes the answers will still be yes and you’ve just dumped a viable line and burned bridges on the way out.

There will always be manufacturers who do things you won’t like. There will always be situations that frustrate you. The smart businesses, however, skip the emotional responses and make business decisions.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Remember that at the end of the day, you are beholden to two things – your customers and your bottom line. Make sure all of your decisions on both accounts are smart business decisions, not emotional reactions.  Don’t think that other manufacturers aren’t watching how you react to these situations. They know who the hotheads are.

What Do You Sell?

I don’t sell toys. I sell Play Value.

I don’t sell baby products. I sell Peace of Mind, Safety, and Love.

I don’t sell books. I sell Imagination, Travel, and Dreams.

I don’t sell hobby products. I sell Creation.

So why would I be advertising toys, baby products, books and hobbies when I should be selling Play Value, Peace of Mind, Imagination, Creation and Dreams?

Not everyone who sells toys sells Play Value. Not everyone who sells baby products sells Peace of Mind, Safety, and Love. Not everyone who sells books sells Imagination and Dreams. Not everyone who sells hobby products sells Creation.

But almost everyone who buys toys, baby products, books or hobby products wants Play Value, Peace of Mind, Imagination, Creation or Dreams.

It isn’t products that they want. It is feelings. Sell the feelings. Sell your customers what they truly want.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS This is called flipping the conversation. Flip the conversation you have about your store from the tools you sell to the projects those tools create. Don’t talk about the hammer, talk about their dream tree house that hammer will build. Don’t talk about the shoes, talk about how they will feel when they finally run that race. Don’t talk about gift ideas, talk about the smile on the recipient’s face and the hugs shared. That is how you speak to the heart of your customers.

PPS The smarter of you already figured this out. I’m not just talking about your marketing. I’m talking about your customer service, too. Align your services and approach to customers around their feelings and you will feel it, too. At the cash register.

I’ve Been Slimed

We all remember that scene in Ghostbusters where Bill Murray’s character comes in contact with a ghost in a hotel. A nasty little creature that leaves his character covered in icky goo.

I had that feeling last week. 
It started out harmless. A photo shoot for our church for the new directory. The photographer was good. Put the family into great poses and took some amazing shots. Then the sales pitch began.
Don’t get me wrong. I knew there would be a sales pitch. I just didn’t know it would be this greasy. It even started with a grease board. Rather than give us a sheet of options, packages and prices, the photographer started right in on the hard sell – the large framed photo with the retouching, UV-protected paper, matted design. He had a grease board where he wrote down what we thought we might like.
When we asked for a price, he kept stating he would figure that at the end. We couldn’t get to the end fast enough as he kept pushing product after product on us. 
We finally got to the end and he started to do his magic. He took another grease board and started making check marks and writing things we couldn’t see. Finally, he presented us a price starting with what we “might have paid” had we done a photo shoot somewhere else. There was a total price with little explanation. We had to keep digging to find out what each item was actually going to cost us. (Remember my Value Equation? Perceived Worth versus Actual Price)
Only after much digging did he show us the calculations on his grease board. The problem was that it was designed to make sense to him and not to us. All we were really left to do was divide the total price by the number of pictures we were getting and decide if we wanted to pay that much.
All in all, it left me feeling slimier than his grease board and not too thrilled with the company. I wouldn’t ever want to hire them or recommend them to anyone else. The pictures were great! The experience was horribly uncomfortable.
Here are three things they could have done differently that would have changed the experience for me completely.
First, be upfront about the sales pitch. Before I even scheduled my photo shoot, there should have been something telling me that this was an opportunity to get more than just a church directory photo. Even though I had gone through this before and knew there was that opportunity, it still needed to be spelled out in advance.
Second, be upfront and transparent about the pricing. Tell me the price of everything, especially when I ask. Heck, tell me the pricing before I even show up. Then I can plan for it, budget for it, and not be sitting there getting anxious about how much this might cost. Yeah, I know he is supposed to sell me. But remember that part of the transaction is earning the trust for another transaction.
Third, be honest. Don’t start your talk about costs with some mythical figure about how much it might have costed elsewhere. I don’t care about that. All I care about is if the price you are charging me is worth the value you are giving me. Most customers are savvy enough to know that the dining room set that is marked Original Price $16,500, Your Price $2499 was never worth $16,500. The only signal you are sending me is that you think I’m gullible. Not the best way to earn my trust.
Be upfront and transparent and honest. You’ll get the sale and the recommendation.
-Phil Wrzesinski
PS The obvious question is, would I have bought more or less had I known the pricing up front? I’m not sure. The only thing I know is that I probably will buy less the next time – if there even is a next time. And therein lies the problem.

Marketing is Sharing

My wife likes sharing. Put her in a room full of other women and it isn’t a gabfest. It’s a sharefest. Right now, with two teenage boys, it is all about college and college prep. Every uncovered secret gets spread. At last Friday’s football game, while she and the ladies around us shared, I would nudge her when it was time to cheer the kids on the field.

She’s the word-of-mouth marketing machine businesses dream of.

Last Saturday I attended a workshop on The Business of Creativity hosted by Jane Robinson. Jane is an artist. Not the starving kind. Jane is that class of people now called “artepreneurs” or “createpreneurs”. She is taking what she has learned and helping create a new breed of entrepreneurs in Jackson.

She said to a room full of artists, “Marketing isn’t scary, folks. Marketing is simply sharing.”

Marketing is sharing.

Marketing is telling people the secrets you know.
Marketing is getting together with your network and sharing what you’ve learned.
Marketing is taking news from others and spreading it as far as you can.
Marketing is giving people around you ideas and thoughts and information.
Marketing is giving people something to talk about.
Marketing is telling your friends and fans and asking them to tell their friends and fans.

The cool thing about thinking this way is that people want to share. Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram are not big because of how easy it is to post something, but because of how easy it is to share what has been posted with others. Most of my Twitter feed is re-tweets.

Your marketing job is simply to give people something Shareworthy.

Your hours and location just aren’t that shareworthy. Your stories and secrets are. Your length of time in business isn’t shareworthy. Your philosophies and reasons for being in business are. The way you change people’s lives is big time shareworthy.

You tell my wife something that will help get the boys into (and out of) college, I promise you, she will share it. You tell your customers how something you know/do will impact their lives, they will share it.

Marketing isn’t scary. Marketing is sharing.  Thanks, Jane!

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS For more on what is Shareworthy, download my FREE eBook Generating Word-of-Mouth. There is stuff in there that you can use to start getting WOM tomorrow.

Don’t Be the Little Piggy

We all know about the little piggy. He went wee, wee, wee all the way home.

As you craft your message for your potential customers this fall, don’t be the little piggy. Take all the “we” statements out of your marketing and change them to “you” statements.

We’ve been in business since 1949.
You want a company that will be there with you for the long run.

We have great customer service.
You will never wait more than 30 seconds on hold to talk to an agent.

We are licensed.
You want a provider who not only stays current with licensing, but takes extra classes to stay ahead of the changes in your system to make sure you are never down.

We offer the best products.
You will find award-winning products like the…

We have time-saving services.
You can get your products giftwrapped for free in less time than it takes to walk in from the parking lot.

We started our business because we…
You want a business that understands your needs, who thinks like you…

The most powerfully seductive word in the English language has only three letters and none of them are an x.

Y – O – U

Make your customer the star of your web copy. Make the customer the star of your print copy. Make the customer the star of your radio copy. Make the customer the the star of your social media, your email marketing, your in-store signage.

You’re already making the customer the star of your business. Now make her the star of your marketing.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS When you talk about your customers, remember to do these three things.

  1. Tell them specifics. Specifics are more believable and lend credibility.
  2. Tell them why. People like to know why you do what you do.
  3. Speak to the heart. Emotional connections are strong. The mind will use logic to justify what the heart has already decided.
Go back and read the You statements above to see what I mean.

Pump Up the Values

We took a look at our Core Values of Having Fun, Helpful, Educational and Nostalgic to see where we might be lacking. If you’ve read Understanding Your Brand then you know the importance of making sure your business shows your core values in everything you do.

Having Fun: We have toys out for demo all throughout the store. I lost count well north of fifty different items out for people to try. We have Story Time, Game Night and special events throughout the year. Yes, we are having fun.

Helpful: Free Giftwrapping, Free Layaway, Delivery & Assembly, Car Seat Installation, Personal Shoppers… Yeah, we have helpful covered, too.

Educational: Free classes on how to buy toys and baby products? Check. Signs throughout the store to educate customers on how to buy different types of toys? Check. Brochures on smart toy shopping? Check. Toys that are educational by nature? Check.

Nostalgic: Hmm… We have been in business since 1949, but just saying that doesn’t necessarily evoke feelings of nostalgia. At Christmas when we have the lights and decorations up, we get that warm, fuzzy nostalgic feeling, but what about the rest of the year? We celebrate birthdays by ringing a thirty-two pound brass bell. That is good, but we can do more.

Nostalgia is defined as a sentimental yearning of a past period. I am working on three new projects to add more Nostalgia into the store.

The first is a photo gallery of our old store along with some old toys produced locally (on loan from the local museum). The second is a milepost sign with directional arrows pointing toward real and fictional places that will take you back to fond memories. The third is a take on the Before I Die campaign that Candy Chang started in New Orleans. We will have chalkboards with the Before I die… statement as Candy did, along with chalkboards of My favorite toy was…

Sentimental yearnings of past periods.

Your business has Core Values. You have to play up those values in everything you do. Everything. Not only you will make your brand stand out in the crowd, you will attract a better breed of customers, customers who share your values.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Don’t know your Core Values? Do this worksheet. Figure out who you are and what you do to show those values. Then pump up the volume on the values not being shown as much. It might not make a difference today, but it will tomorrow. You are in business for tomorrow, aren’t you?

A Great Use of Stories

I ran into Molly on a Saturday morning at the bank.

“Phil, we’re having tours of our new building this summer. What are you doing this Tuesday at 5:30?”

Molly runs the Center for Family Health, a healthcare facility for Jackson that is especially helpful for low-income, uninsured, and under-insured patients in our community. They just consolidated two facilities into one shiny building a couple blocks from our store.

I went, expecting the usual, a high-ranking person, maybe Molly herself, walking us through the building with a bunch of blah blah numbers about healthcare and how important they are to the community.

Oh we got that. But we also got a whole bunch more. At each stop along the tour we met a new person who shared a few facts with us. Then that person gave us a testimonial from a patient, put a face on that department and showed us with tear-jerking reality what a difference they make in the lives of people we know.

By the third stop I was looking for a tissue box.

The stories were real. The stories were emotional. The stories were about situations you and I could relate to. The stories were illustrative of the services offered by the center. I sat in a dental area and saw a picture of an 8-year old girl with teeth black and rotting. Then I saw a picture of the same girl at 16 with a full, beautiful toothy smile. I didn’t need a dentist with facts and figures and flow charts to figure out what they do. I knew from those pictures and her story.

I’m glad I went. More importantly, I’m glad they understood the power of stories. I cannot remember a single fact they shared with me (well, except the 500 births they do each year – that was surprising and useful information), but I remember all the stories in detail. I walked out of the building wanting to share what I had learned with the world.

I just did.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS You have stories. Tell them. They are more memorable and make a stronger, more emotional connection than facts and data ever could. Remember, we make more decisions with our heart than our mind and when the heart and mind are at odds, the heart almost always wins. We use our brains to justify what our hearts have already decided.

What Makes Them Drive to See You?

I plopped down in the back seat next to a newborn baby. Cute little thing. Eyes still closed to the world.

The new mama sat on the other side of the seat and asked, “Do we have the straps on right?”

They had been in last week to get help installing the seat in their car. Now they have the baby. Even though the car seat owner’s manual clearly states how tight the straps should be, this couple drove to our store, parked while daddy came in to get me, and listened carefully as I explained how tight the harness should be and how to check it themselves.

Some of you might be thinking, wow, what a waste of your precious time. I didn’t sell them anything. There was no transaction. Heck, the car seat didn’t even come from my store. It was a shower gift. I got nothing out of the transaction.

Or did I?

They drove to my store.

Twice.

In one week.

While having a baby.

To make sure their new baby is safe.

What is the chance they will be back?

What is your store known for to the point that customers will seek you out even though there may be an easier solution? What do you do that is so trustworthy customers will make a special trip just to see you? What do you do that connects to the core values of your customer base? What do you do that might seem costly to an outsider but you know will reap you great rewards in the long run?

Answer those questions. Then do more of that. They’ll be back.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS There are many ways to build trust with your customers. I detail some of them in my latest FREE eBook Selling in a Showrooming World. If you aren’t one of the 273 people who downloaded it last week, you might want to see what all the fuss is about.

Selling in a Showrooming World

Information wants to be free.
Everyone has a smartphone.
Much of what you sell can be purchased online – often for less.
It has never been easier for a customer to do all the research herself, scan a barcode, and get the best possible price.

How are you going to compete?

By doing what you’re supposed to be doing anyway – meeting the customer where she is, and giving her exactly what she wants when she wants it.

Yeah, we call that selling.

I spoke to a roomful of baby product sellers last week about this topic and spelled out a few simple ways to help you close the sale. My notes from that talk are now available in the Freebies section of my website.

Check out my latest ebook – Selling in a Showrooming World. Yes, it is FREE (see the opening statement above). Share it with all your retail friends and start selling (again).

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS After you read Selling in a Showrooming World, go back and read Customer Service: From Weak to WOW! and Staff Meetings Everyone Wants to Attend.  Then, if you don’t think you can train your staff to close the sale, you might want to consider buying the book Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel and get yourself a staff that is a work of art.

Information Gotta Be Free, A Good Salesperson is Priceless

What did we do twenty years ago when we wanted information on a certain product we were considering?

Anyone remember?

There was Consumer Reports. There were other magazines that might have done a review or two. There were your friends and family – a much smaller circle before Facebook helped us all reconnect.

And there was the salesperson. The gatekeeper. The controller of knowledge.

A Good Salesperson knew all there was to know about everything she sold and quite a lot about the stuff she didn’t sell. A Good Salesperson knew all about you, too. What you liked and didn’t like. What worked well for you. Your preferences. Your desires. A good salesperson let you through the gate, showed you what you needed to know, and found you the perfect fit.

When you found a good salesperson, you kept her. You went back to that store for the information, the suggestions and the personal touch. Oh sure, sometimes you got the information and bought elsewhere cheaper because of a deal too good to pass up. But you understood there was a price to that kind of knowledge and more often you were willing to pay for it.

The Internet changed all that.

Information is FREE. Wikipedia said so. Jeeves said so. Yahoo said so. Google said so. Information is free and plentiful. Not always accurate, but always out there.

Today we can pull up dozens of review sites, complete spec sheets and instructions, hordes of testimonials both good and bad all in a matter of seconds. Today we can walk into almost any store in America and know just as much or more about the product than the gum-chewing clerk waiting on us.

The Internet brought the level of available information up. But at the same time,the level of professionalism of the salesperson went down. I partly blame Albert Einstein who said, “Never memorize anything you can easily look up.” It is so easy to look things up now that salespeople stopped knowing.

Except what does that tell the customer when your salespeople are looking up the same information the customer looked up last night at home?

The other thing we’ve lost has nothing to do with the Internet. Our salespeople have lost the ability to connect.

Information gotta be free. And it is. The difference now between “selling” and “clerking” is the connection. Go back up and read that paragraph about the Good Salesperson. Those last six sentences are why showrooming is such a big deal. Salespeople have forgotten about connecting. Customers feel no connection so they gather up all the free information they can and shop wherever they please.

Want to combat showrooming in your store? Spend your money hiring good salespeople who want to connect. Spend your money teaching them how to connect. Spend your money, your time, your effort getting to know your customers better.

The Internet will never be able to compete with that.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS In a few days I’m going to be showing a bunch of juvenile product store owners how to connect and sell. Shortly after that I’m going to post my latest Freebie – Selling in a Showrooming World. If you can’t make it to Vegas, be sure to look for the new eBook. Just like all the information I’ve posted… It’s FREE!