Stage 1: Precontemplation. People in this stage are ignorant of the product’s existence—“What the heck is a TelloMetrix Range-Limiting Child Access Marker?”—and/or are unaware that they need it.Oh, what a mistake! I walked into a local car dealership one bright sunny day and was greeted by a young salesman who within the first 60 seconds made an error that cost him my business. His blunder? He treated me like someone who did no research, like someone who didn’t know what he wanted, like I wasn’t familiar with the product and wasn’t experienced at buying cars. No sale!
His problem was that he was trying to sell me the same way he had sold the last guy, and the woman before him, and all the others who crept like generic white lab rats through the maze of shiny cars on his lot. He didn’t take even one second to determine where he should start selling me.
In a very different situation, imagine if I knocked on your door and began my presentation like this: “Hi! My name’s Drew, and I’m selling the new TelloMetrix Range-Limiting Child Access Marker that works on GPS satellite triangulation featuring MIMD vector processing realized with VLIW and two-millimeter band VX communication capabilities.” You’d probably scratch your head, furrow your brow, and be compelled to say, “Uh, yeah, right. No thanks. Bye, ya weirdo!” long before finding out what I was talking about.
But why? The product I’m selling could be exactly what you’ve been looking for. It has all the features you could possibly want. It received 535 positive reviews on multiple online websites, and it’s backed by free technical service and an incredible 10-year warranty.
The problem here is that you have no idea what I’m selling. My words were Greek to you. Nothing about anything I said struck a chord. You didn’t connect with my pitch because nothing I said was familiar. Without that connection, there’s no possible way for me to begin building desire for my product. Since you didn’t understand what I was talking about, the mental movie screen in your head remained blank. I gave you no raw material to create rich, emotion-filled, full-color movies in your head. Nothing I said referenced anything else that you understood, and so instead of imagining my product in use, you stood in the doorway with glazed eyes, wondering how many more words I’d say before going away.
Not only did I not grab your attention, I also didn’t build interest, stimulate desire, or cause you to take the positive action of pulling out your credit card and slapping it into my hand. I returned to my office with a puzzled look, a blank contract, and a savings account balance symbolic of a salesman who just doesn’t get it.
Any time you’re facing a new prospect, you must take into account that prospect’s present state of awareness of your product or product category. That’s the case because no matter what you’re selling, the most effective way to write orders is to meet prospects in their world.
Consider a master hypnotist seeking to put her client into a deep relaxing trance. She doesn’t begin by telling a frantic, stressed-out guy, “Hey, relax!” She does just the opposite. First, she ratifies his current emotional state by feeding him observations that he immediately both identifies and agrees with: “Right now you’re lying down on a big blue couch, and you’re feeling really stressed out from a long drive here in terrible rush-hour traffic during a winter snowstorm. Your brain is probably racing a mile a minute. Your body is probably tense, jumpy, and restless or maybe just terribly tired. You may be wondering if you’ll even be able to benefit from this session given your present state. The fact is, you’re here to relax and forget about all that, to put it all behind you, to imagine the warmest and most beautiful tropical island with …”
The hypnotist met her client in his world. She established instant rapport by talking about what he was thinking and feeling at that very moment. By doing so, she also developed a yes-set, an agreeable frame of mind created through conditioning that predisposed her client to think yes. Any salesperson worth his or her weight in order forms will tell you, “The more times you get a prospect to say yes in the beginning of your presentation, the easier it’ll be for him to say yes when it’s time to close the deal.”
Without initially acknowledging his present state—in other words, if she just jumped into trying to relax him—she probably would have met resistance because her suggestions to relax would have run head first into a mindset of tension and anxiety. As a salesperson, you’ll typically meet similar resistance. A similar thing happens when you try to sell something that your prospect doesn’t understand or isn’t familiar with. Behold, TTM to the rescue.
The transtheoretical model (TTM) divides consumer knowledge and the resulting behavior into five stages. It provides simple guidelines for persuading prospects so that they move from a state of complete ignorance of your product (“Huh? I never heard of that”) to making it a regular purchase or an integral part of their lifestyle (“I can’t understand why anyone would buy anything else”).
Being aware of these stages allows you to better understand how and where to begin a sales presentation.
Here are the five stages of awareness that consumers move through both before and after learning about a product for the first time:
Stage 1: Precontemplation. People in this stage are ignorant of the product’s existence—“What the heck is a TelloMetrix Range-Limiting Child Access Marker?”—and/or are unaware that they need it.
Stage 2: Contemplation. Prospects in this stage are aware of the product and are thinking about using it but haven’t pulled the trigger: Hmmm, what would I do if little Jonah got lost while I was shopping? There are nut cases out there who could steal him and be out the door in seconds. Ugh, how horrible! How would I find him? I should check out those TelloMetrix things some time.
Stage 3: Preparation. This is the planning phase. The prospect is thinking about buying from you but needs more information about the product’s benefits and advantages: Hmmm, the TelloMetrix device sounds like a good way to track my lost child if, God forbid, that happens. But how does it compare to other child-finder GPS products on the market? What’s it cost? Does it really work? Are there any online reviews by actual buyers?
Stage 4: Action. You’ve successfully escorted the prospect to the coveted action, or purchase, phase. “I want it—here’s my VISA card. How soon can you ship my TelloMetrix?”
Stage 5: Maintenance. In this postsale phase, the product has become an integral part of your customer’s everyday life. She continues to buy from you and trusts that each purchase will be as good an experience as the last. She now prefers your product to your competitors’. When it comes to child-protection devices, her first thought is, TelloMetrix products just plain work, unlike a lot of the cheap overseas junk that’s out there. I’d recommend TelloMetrix to my closest friends and family members. I wouldn’t trust anything else with something as important as my child’s well-being.
The psychologist James O. Prochaska (1994) stated that the aim of businesses that use this technique is to move the consumer through the stages one at a time until using their product becomes a habit. Your challenge, of course, is to deal with prospects who are at different stages of the process.
Do they know they have a problem? Do they know or understand anything about your product type, let alone your specific offering? Do they need or want your product? Do they even know it exists? Rather than jumping in with the mindset “My product/service is great; I’ll simply sell it from that perspective,” the TTM suggests asking this one key question (after determining, of course, that you’re talking to a true prospect): “What do you currently know about [product type, e.g., child locator GPS devices]?” This simple open-ended question typically elicits everything from, “I know absolutely nothing about them,” to, “I own one now and am very familiar with them.” The response will immediately tell you where to jump into the sales presentation continuum and save you a tremendous amount of time and effort.
The transtheoretical model is especially helpful for producing ads and sales-support materials such as brochures, flyers, and web pages. Since printed matter can’t ask the “what do you know about” question, the TTM suggests three options for addressing prospects in multiple stages of awareness:
1. Create ads and materials that address all five stages. This lets your prospects focus on whatever stage is personally relevant to them. In this case, you include full details, A to Z, so that those who know nothing can get up to speed. Those who know more can read only what’s personally relevant.
2. Create a series of ads and materials that progresses from stage 1 to stage 5. Stage 1 would introduce your product to the marketplace. Each successive ad, sales letter, brochure, flyer, or e-mail builds on the previous one.
3. Create a website that allows visitors to choose which subpages are personally relevant by offering multiple buttons that address their present stages of awareness:
Check the box that’s right for you and click “ENTER”
“[ ] I’m new to child-locator GPS devices.”
“[ ] I know a little about them.”
“[ ] I’m thoroughly familiar with them, and I’m currently comparing brands and models.”
The goal is to provide your prospects with enough personally relevant information and motivation to move them through the five awareness stages at their own pace until they ultimately become regular, loyal customers.
Don’t be like many inexperienced salespeople. Don’t try to sell Knowledgeable Norm the same way you sell Ignorant Ida. Like the hypnotist we discussed earlier, find out where they are now and then meet them in their world. Not only will you save time, your presentation will be dramatically more relevant to your prospect, boosting your chances for a successful outcome.