I remember listening to Steve Jobs (One of my many idols in life) talk about the ipod before and during his epic Apple press conference on the release of the device.
Those old enough to remember walkmans and portable CD players may remember the excitement when this great man said they famous words….
“1000 songs in your pocket”
Oh my god! what the heck! How the F???? were words that came out my mouth looking at this pretty little thing they called an Ipod!
The walkman was fine and the introduction to the portable CD player was a huge step forward, we could now switch to the next song with the CD player rather than the walkman way of pressing the fast forward button for 2-3 mins until it got to the next song (then rewinding it for 30 seconds when you went to far) and now here is American dude most of the world weren’t aware of producing this device that blew our mind and then he said this…
“A Client doesn’t know what he wants until we tell them and its not a customers job to know what they want”
Wow that hit me and I never forgot that as i entered the business world.
As a landscaping company owner I knew my clients ‘wanted’ the shiny porcelain products, I knew they wanted nice lights and sunken hot tubs and water features and fancy designs etc but a champagne desire on a lemonade budget never ends well and often results in a wasted site survey and essentially ‘no deal’ for me or the business.
I quickly figured that I could show them the products I wanted them to choose and quickly as if by magic 95% of my clients were going ‘my way’ and buying the products that fitted my business better and there budget better too.
Before you go to see your next client think about what products you prefer using, base this on budget (you should roughly know this based on your finding during the targeting and qualification process) and of course what the clients wants roughly) and watch how the ‘shiny products’ the client ‘thinks’ they want don;t even come into the conversation.
A client doesn’t know what he or she wants until you tell them.
These are the basic things we work on within the business coaching programmes at Tradecoach and all our clients are well aware of the importance of not giving clients a plethora of choices (it takes too long and restricts the contractor giving a price in a reasonable timescale as we need to wait on slow suppliers sending over prices) and it works…..
Be mindful of confusing the client because decisions don’t get made when there is too much choice.
Imagine a world where you only use 3-4 products in various colours, pricing is quicker, quotes being sent are quicker, decisions are quicker and installations are quicker and better and more business comes into the business as does continuity.
