Your weekly disruption

Last week we introduced the concept of clicking.

Clicking is built on the idea of building conviction as opposed to needing to convince others that they should buy what you have. In essence it’s about linking known problems that your target market expresses often with the solutions you know can help them. Problem bridging is the big idea.

A great idea or product that only you like is not that great. A great idea or product that others love is what makes conviction selling possible. It’s about figuring out how what you have can help them get rid of problems they know about, and possibly those they don’t.

This will be the problem that people openly discuss and believe that to date no one has come up with a good solution for. The fact that these concerns are blatant and openly spoken of is a positive. It gives you a bridge anchor point into their predominant dialogue.

 It might be helpful to imagine what the conversation would be if you put 100 of your target market in a room and asked them to share their biggest challenge. What would they say? What keeps them awake at night? What is their primary concern? This will be the problem that they openly discuss and frequently lament the lack of a solution to.

What do they really think about, when they are sitting quietly pondering their situation? They understand the problems but may not have voiced them yet, either to themselves or others. This is the problem that you don’t have to dig too deeply beneath the surface to uncover.

In this case, ask yourself what they would say if sitting with you at the end of a long day, with half a bottle of good red wine down. The unspoken problems are typically personal fears and concerns, doubt often creeps in here. This is the problem that you don’t have to dig too deeply beneath the surface to uncover.

The unknown problem is the most dangerous of all the problems. If you don’t get this right and you express it as true, you have lost any chance of getting your idea off the ground. If you get it right, though, you will see a light come on in your client’s eyes. They will nod as they get to see you put form around something that they have known to be true but have not been able to name or identify. If you are the person who does this for someone else, you become the trusted advisor and a partner for life.

Why the process is effective

Many salespeople use this technique for introducing their ideas to an audience in both written and spoken formats. The process is very effective for a variety of important reasons:

Articulating the situation people find themselves in builds rapport because you understand and can describe their situation. This in turn builds the customers confidence that they can trust you. Why would you trust someone that doesn’t understand you or your situation?

When you progress the conversation to further explain people’s unspoken thoughts and feelings about the situation they are facing, or the challenges they are confronting, they sense your empathy. They understand that you know how they really feel about this, that you have thought deeply enough about the situation to understand the emotional aspects and the human factors involved. You have ‘walked in their shoes’.

Of course the moment you announce the unknown facts, ideas, solutions or elements in your communication to others and their eyes light up, or they laugh in relief, or smile in excitement and recognition of the pathway forward, you have demonstrated the value you present.

Within moments of communicating with people you are able to share an idea or solution to their problem, so you are offering immediate vale. You are not holding back or attempting to enhance the perceived value of the offer you have yet to reveal. You are, with complete integrity, saying: “Look, I understand your situation. I know how you must be feeling or thinking about it and I have thought of a solution. Here’s what I think you could do…”