We at JWGecko are in the process of developing a new website for some of our own products. Over the course of the development we have come to a couple of monumental discoveries … well in our minds anyway. This post is about one of these – Selling not Telling, the nature of content development.
This is a grand title and a large subject that at some point we will develop further, however the basics are simple.
The web is brilliant for communicating with your customers 24/7 and because it is, we tend to load the website up with every piece of information we can find in an effort to answer all the questons we won’t be there to hear. The problem is when we do that the customer prospect doesn’t need to talk to us at all – or at least they don’t think they do.
Look at it this another way ….
A long time ago I was young and single <yes really> … Let’s imagine we are on a first date with a hot prospect. My objective is to sell her the concept of ‘me’ so she buys me for life or until she reads the pre-nup.
Suitor 1: I am sitting on the other side of the table nervous desperate for her to like me. Over dinner I ask her a few question about her, but basically I spend a long lovely evening telling my gorgeous prospect everything about me I think she might like and counteracting everything negative anyone may ever said about me. My date clearly had a good night, leaves smiling BUT without giving me her number and I am too embarrassed to ask. I know she wants the same things I do and over time she will either call me or forget me – the question is, is it based on the evidence or will someone else turn her head? “I know she’ll call she had a great time – I could tell … when will she call, will she ever call?”
Suitor 2: I am sitting on the other side of the table nervous desperate for her to like me. Over dinner I tell her about the most interesting parts of my character and life. I ask her about hers and I highlight the similarities. There is a lot more I want to say and hear however I look at my watch, “Oh my, I have to go, I am so sorry, can I call you tomorrow?” We start to go our separate ways, she, a little disappointed the date ended early but with a bag full of exciting tit-bits to consider; me, wondering if I did enough. Was she interested? I ask the question, “Can I have your number?” and I receive an answer.
Who is going to get the sale? Who is more likely to get a second date?
Timing is everything, enough information needs to have been transferred so the interest level is high enough to overcome the disappointment of not getting everything she would have liked. If this is achieved then we will have created the environment for a “value exchange” – I will give me more informaiton if you will give me your number so I can ask you out for a second date.
If the timing of the end of communications is correct then either the answer will be yes or no. The point is, if the answer is NO and the question was asked with the right amount of information then it would always have been NO, so a second date would have been wasted no matter how much information was communicated. If the answer is yes, then perhaps we we will get to hold hands in the movies next time.
Back to website content – did we ever leave it?
Just because your website doesn’t have a shopping cart doesn’t mean you aren’t selling – in business we are all always selling or we are missing opportunities for ourselves and our clients. In my opinion a non-shopping cart website is there to develop interest to a point where a phone call or an email is generated – that’s it. To achieve this we need to develop trust, entertain and educate to a point where the value exchange is possible i.e. get the client’s contact information. This is especially important in higher value exchanges where the client might not know the importance or relevance of your product. If you tell them the price for example without being able to to justify it with a cost:benefit analysis based on their own business scenario you may never get a change to do so. You may never get a chance to counter their personalised product objections. And you won’t sell the product or services you need to sell and that the client needs for their business.
So now we have the ladies number … what will we do about it? That story for another time ….. “Oh my, I have to go, I am so sorry, can I call you tomorrow?”
