You Haven’t Earned the Right to Sell to Me! Part 1

What is often missed in the equation of sales and marketing is the lifetime value of a customer. Once the initial sale is made they are forgotten. With proper care, a one-time or occasional buyer can turn into a loyal buyer. And loyalty is more often than not based on trust.

We live in a “try before you buy” society. Because of this many buyers use what is referred to as the buying ladder. The buying ladder is very applicable to brick-and-mortar sales as well as Internet sales.

Before buying a high ticket item, buyers will “test the waters.” This can be done in a number of ways: by test driving a car, taking a tour of a home, asking friends and associates for a recommendation. When purchasing on the Internet it can be downloading a free information item or buying an inexpensive product from a website to test out the level of service, quality of product, delivery time, quality of information (in the case of an information product), and response time. It may even depend on the buyer’s “gut feeling.”  What are your own buying habits? What process do you go through before making the decision to buy?

When you gain trust people want to do business with you. And they want to tell others about the experience. Have you heard the expression that if someone has a bad experience they will tell more people about that experience than they do a good one? I can’t say that I necessarily agree with this statement. There are occasions when I have heard people rave about a great experience over and over again.
Buying decisions are made for a number of reasons, but they ultimately depend upon whether or not the buyer trusts the process. And if they trust you. It is through the process of building trust that we have earned the right to sell.