The truth is, if you have a brilliant product/service, that has value to many people, but you do not market it and close the deal, you will never make money from it. Many people dislike the customer education function, but it is the cornerstone of any successful business.
The essence of a good business opportunity is when the service/product is a need in the marketplace. Business opportunities underpinned by wants are equally good when they serve specific niche markets. For example, food like mealie pap could be a need in many indigenous Southern African communities and yet, in those same communities, cake, still a food item, is regarded a want and not necessarily a need.
So business opportunities that fill a need tend to do well throughout the world. However, we need to peel another layer off. If you unpack the concept of the Living Standards Measure (LSM), you might establish that at LSM 10, for example, a night moisturizer is a need, for a 60 year old, whereas at LSM 3, for the same age, a night moisturizer is not even on the radar for that grouping, as a want.
There are different markets for needs and wants. When there is value, in a product/service, that is a need or a want in the various LSMs, ordinarily measured from 1 to10, there will always be customers to buy it. For every product/service with an appealing value proposition, there is a buyer. You therefore do not need to deploy high pressure selling tactics. You must persuade the potential customer to participate in closing the deal with you, simply through customer education.
Potential customers cannot buy what does not exist in their minds. You have to educate them about your value proposition. Thereafter, they will ask you about the immediate next steps and you close the deal that started off as a marketing and customer education pitch.
These principles are true for all products/services and virtually for all marketplaces.
How you get an audience from a marketplace is different. With the advent of the internet and the booming social media, many people are selling and making money online. But customer education is more than selling. Selling tends to involve parroting sales clichés taught at the company’s sales school, whereas customer education is about meaningful engagement with the potential client, where you allow them to reflect on the information you have presented and interrogate you. If it is a product whose use you can demonstrate, you ought to spend a great deal of time showing them how it works and why it is a good idea to consider having it. The point here is, if you do not close that deal, there will be no transaction and therefore no profit realization. Refrain from hurriedly wanting to close the deal. Displaying desperation for that deal, will make the potential customer run.
Nail bar and clothing shop owners whose owners are always present when potential and existing customers visit, tend to be like “agony aunts” as they listen to the clients’ personal issues whilst the shopping is taking place. Listening and allowing the customer to vent, is a way of creating a safe space for the customer, away from their daily grind. It is a way of creating a conducive and enabling environment for deal closure.
Other methods of accessing marketplaces include but are not restricted to having physical shops at or away from home, having a network of agents who distribute your offering, selling through retail shops, etcetera. The principle stays the same, you are getting your product/service known in the marketplace!
Unfortunately many people are misinformed about personal customer education where you gather a group of people in a room and you deliver target presentations to them. Many people think its below them, to
inform, educate and persuade directly, on a face to face basis, a potential client, who might find value, in your proposition. Authors, have succeeded in doing this, through book launches and book signings. Reputable multi-level distributors have succeeded in making people build businesses within businesses, through this model. Personal customer education is of a delicate nature because you stand amongst people, using product/service knowledge to cajole in order to close the deal. There is no room for high pressure selling tactics. I have come to adore this method of getting a potential customer to commit, because your credibility and integrity are at stake. If you are that credible, whatever you are educating potential customers about, must offer a money back guarantee.
In the spirit of having multiple income streams, this is where those keen in achieving financial freedom, must navigate business opportunities that allow them no access fees, great products that deliver, a whole wide web of a dependable support system and a money back guarantee.
The most successful multi-level marketing
programmes take care of their entrepreneurial distributors. Many have become multi-millionaires just by following proven and tried methods developed over decades. Those who have succeeded in multi-level distribution, have also succeeded in other businesses, because the business principles are the same, they are transportable, adaptable and can be leveraged from one business to the other.
When you do not have targets and sales turnover forecasts, what are you aiming for? It is a graph with consistent increases in sales turnover, whilst keeping expenses down and managing cashflow, that are some of the determinants of steady business growth. That business growth is anchored in sales turnover. No matter how you much you like or dislike customer pitching in business, it is the cornerstone of building a viable business. Fortunately, the best customer pitches are done face to face, are personal and you get better at it, the more you do it. Sooner or later, one way or the other, potential clients start seeking you out, because of word-of-mouth networks - the most authentic and legitimate marketing and customer education gimmick.
My next instalment will be on word-of-mouth.
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