Every business owner wants to increase sales production without having to spend valuable financial resources to do so. We know that.
But what if the solution to your sales problem was sitting right under your nose and so fundamental that it simply can’t be seen?
Problems in the sales arena don’t always lie with you. You can beat yourself up over deals you should have won but lost, or lament the fact that we still operate in a weakened economic climate.
If the right prospects aren’t knocking on your door, at least some of the time, you’ve got a problem that can cause any entrepreneur sleepless nights. So how do you start to get those prospects knocking on your door? What’s the first place every business owner should look?
You may be surprised by the simplicity of the answer.
Let’s start by defining some common words you may or may not be familiar with and using them in a different context.
Reality – this is what is “real” to you or me.
Reality is agreement. If you were a birdwatcher and attended the monthly meeting of the Mountain Birdwatchers Association you would have a similar reality to other attendees and most likely be in agreement with their thoughts, ideas and viewpoints about birds.
As a result of this agreement there would be a high level of communication between you and the other club members, and friendships and relationships would be made.
In a loving relationship two people generally have similar realities from everything as personal as rearing children and religious beliefs to as fun loving as sports and movies. They don’t have to be in total agreement with everything but in a successful marriage it sure helps to be in complete agreement on the majority of issues.
In business, your “inside reality” is what YOU feel, or what YOUR ORGANIZATION agrees is given to, or exchanged with, their prospects or clients.
This inside reality can be a good one or a bad one.
It is associated with value based on your experience, the quality of your product or service, the value of your employees and the service you believe you provide, or don’t provide.
For example, take the fictional Milano family, owners of Milano’s Italian Restaurant, a business they have owned and managed for a generation.
They firmly believe their recipes and menu, handed down from father to son, is the tastiest in town and certainly much better than their competitors.
On the other hand their customers, or lack of them, may perceive the restaurant very differently.
Perception –definition: Insight, intuition, or knowledge gained by intuition or observation – this is the prospect’s perceived viewpoint of you or your company, whether true or untrue.
It’s how you are viewed by others. This perception is the result of your communication, whether verbal, written, or simply how you personally present yourself to others.
Outside Perception comes about:

1. Visually, through the use of advertising and a company’s marketing efforts such as signage, billboards and advertising.
2. Through one-on-one communication with you as an individual or with your company via its sales representatives and customer service employees.
3. From reading “third party” comments, these can be endorsements (referrals) from happy or dissatisfied clients or online plaudits or criticisms.

Sadly for most companies Inside Reality and Outside Perception do not correspond.
Remember; in order to succeed in business you must have a very clear understanding that…
“If you want to know why John Smith buys what John Smith buys, you’ve got to see the world through John Smith’s eyes.” – Old adage, unidentified author.
Let’s go back to Milano’s restaurant.
It would seem that over the years the restaurant has gotten stale.
Those leather booths they have had for a generation have gotten old and torn.
The bathrooms aren’t as fresh and clean as they could be and that smell of mold is, well, worrisome to say the least, and to top it off, mama’s meatballs just aren’t what they used to be.
The locals know it, the concierge at the local hotel knows it, but Milano’s doesn’t.
Rather than hurt the family’s feelings by telling them the truth, locals stay away, and eat elsewhere.
Unfortunately Milano’s inside reality doesn’t match the local’s outside perception, and as time wears on the restaurant finds itself sliding gradually into insolvency.
In a nutshell, the owners of the restaurant aren’t looking at their restaurant from the outside perspective of their customers.
They aren’t seeing their restaurant through their diners’ eyes.
What they need to learn to do is survey their customers, through such online means as www.surveymonkey.com, by telephone interviews, or just plain old one-on-one door knocking, preferably using an impartial third party.
If they are willing to take the criticism and willing to change to give their customers what they tell them they really need, then quite possibly their lack of sales can be reverted.
The other lesson learned from the adage above, “…seeing the world through John Smith’s eyes,” is that creating promotional material, advertising geared to bring customers to your door, will unlikely be as effective without this change in viewpoint.
Design the advertising for John Smith by seeing the world through John Smith’s eyes.
So how do you increase sales in today’s challenging environment?
Ask yourself, is your product or service really solving a problem for your target market? If so is that being clearly communicated?
Or is your message “soft” and lacking impact and focused on features and benefits and platitude-ridden?
“Platitudes” – overused, dull, stale and trite (boring, not fresh or original, from too much overuse) words and phrases that one sees everywhere in advertising and promotional material.
The word comes from the French word plat, meaning dull.
Examples are: “Family owned and operated.” – “A lifestyle above the ordinary.”
“Committed to customer service.” – “In business since 1972.”
This same principle very much applies to the independent salesperson. You have your own reality but, truly, have you given much thought to how your prospects perceive you?
The Milano family, with a change of viewpoint and some surveying under their belt, might learn a few lessons about what their clients really want, increase sales and salvage their business in the process.
© 2013 SELLability Technologies LLC. All Rights Reserved.