First, you need to get the word out. Then you need to connect with the people what they are looking for, what you have to offer, and get them on the Express Highway. The first is where your effort is going to go, and the second is where the action is going to happen.
How does the thing work?
How do you get people to take action? How do you get people to do business with you? How do you get people to move into a situation where they’re going through your Express Highway? Let’s go into the psychology of this. What’s happening is that the customer knows what’s going on in the mind of the business owner or the salesperson. So the customer knows that this person is going to ply me with something.
Two Issues
So the number one thing is that they know what you’re thinking, but you don’t know what they’re thinking. The second issue is they are going to use all the options available at their disposal regardless of how well the human connection is and what good a price you are giving them. They’re going to compare you with a few more people in order to arrive at a decision. Because in a time of strife or slow down, nobody wants to be wrong. So they want to make sure they’ve seen all the decisions.
These are the two items that the customer has or wants to have, but you don’t have, and you need to have, which is you need to know what they’re thinking. And the second thing is you need to have options which means if they have a different bunch of supplies that they were going to compare you against. Why don’t you have a bunch of customers that they are being compared against, and they know it and should know that they’re being compared with a bunch of other people. This thing is called posturing, and it cannot be faked. You cannot fake to a customer that I have options or other people waiting in line to see me unless you actually have other people waiting in line to see you. So this is the psychology of it.
How does this happen?
I will walk you through the steps on how this happens, and I’m going to backtrack that into customer psychology. So you need to understand what’s happening so that you’re able to implement it properly. So how does this thing work?
See, if a customer has a pressing need, there are only two pressing needs: they have a major pressing need; they got into an accident, they need to get to a hospital or something like that, or they have a minor need that is super irritating. It can be solved quickly, like a 50 rupee problem.
So if it’s a low-ticket problem, which is causing that big of irritation and then solve it regardless, but that problem can only be solved by a grocery store, and you cannot solve it. So you’re in a segment where you’re slightly more high-value than a grocery store and slightly lower value than a life-saving doctor. So then you’re stuck in that zone.
What happens is unless the problem is huge or a highly irritating small problem, then it falls under a segment where it’s not occupying mind space. Time is at a premium, and Energy is at a premium. If they think they have a problem, they see an ad or a pamphlet, or somebody tells them that they can solve it this way if you have this problem. Then what they want to do is they have something called Micro Attention span at that time. If the thing catches their eye, what they’re going to do is they’re going to take a photo of that pamphlet. Somebody told them something, and they want to write it down in the notes. They have a three-second attention span. In three seconds, what can they do? They’ll take a photo of this. They’ll figure it out later. Assuming one in ten cases, they’ll probably come to it during the weekend, and they’re going to spend 10 minutes on it. How are they going to spend 10 minutes on it? They’re going to go to Google or Amazon, and they’re going to spend about 10 minutes searching and double-checking.
Now, what is the third thing, in 10 minutes either they take their decision. Only one in ten people actually take that decision in 10 minutes. People don’t really take decisions based on Google searches anymore. That thing is also slowing down and then what they do is what they have always done in life. The time-tested solution to every problem is to phone a friend.
If you look at all of the different decisions you’ve taken that are not super irritating small items that you need to solve immediately or that is not like major life-threatening items that require your attention, only 1% of the decisions get taken immediately. Maybe a total of 4-8 Percent of decisions get taken via Google search. And if a decision is taken at all, then the overwhelming majority of decisions are taken on the recommendation of a friend. So what people do is they call somebody who in that area is smarter than them, and the person tells them, hey, I think this is what you should do.
They doubt that the other person either doesn’t have all the information or is not invested in the problem as much as I am invested. So then the other guy doesn’t even care. They just shoot off the ideas on top of the head, right or wrong, but they’re probably going to take the decision based on the recommendation of a friend. Because by this time, they’re already confused with a bunch of things that they’ve done, and all they need to do is decide what they want to solve this problem today. They’ll just do whatever that friend tells them.
I am diving deep into the psychological stuff because unless you understand this, every other thing you learn on the internet will not help you. 99% of all these so-called smart guys, Facebook marketers are hurting right now. After the lockdown opened, high-end prices soared. This artificial market was created with low-end prices during the lockdown because real businesses were not advertising at that time. All of these guys have gotten swatted out. Therefore, how the human brain works is more important than all these tools and techniques. They can be learned within a period of 30 days.
Outreach Program
Where in these areas do you need to be? You need to be at Phone a Friend level. You must be the trusted person that everybody wants to do business with. But the funny part is nobody will trust you unless you’re at Micro Attention span of 3 seconds and Google/Amazon search of 10 minutes. Unless you provide both the other levels of information in large enough quantities, people will not trust you as a friend.
This is what we call an outreach program. You need to provide three types of content. You need to provide micro-content in large enough quantity, you need to provide training content in large enough quantity, and you need to provide recommendations backed by experience. Why do you trust that one friend of yours? Because they have experience in that area. They have tried and failed and done all the trial and error more than you have in that area.
How do you do these three things?
I will talk to you from my experience because I’ve done it. In micro-content, there are two ways to do it. There is a freeway, and there is a paid way. Paid ways are Facebook or YouTube ads, LinkedIn, or Instagram. The free way is there is something called a dollar 1.8 strategy. It is from the world’s number one social-media influencer.
The micro-content is what people read, and if they’re interested, they come in. When they come in, you provide them all of the information that Google and Amazon provide them. Because people don’t want to go to Google or Amazon, they know they’re going to be plied with a lot of different sets of options, and they’ll never be able to make a decision. They are going to be even more confused than ever. See, you are going to provide them with enough information, and this has to be non-biased information. Do not create information that leads into your product; that’s cheap. Don’t be cheap. You provide them genuine value training content that clears the air in their head, and the moment that happens, they start seeing you as a friend. Then you give them some recommendations based on your experience.
You say, I have had some experience in here and based on this, here are my recommendations. Then one of those recommendations is your product. Just because you recommend a product doesn’t mean they are going to buy it. There’s another step after this (word out) called the Express Highway.
When you give them the recommendation, how do you select among these three recommendations I gave you? You bring them to the Express Highway. They go through the express Highway, and then some of them arrive at your product, and they buy your product.
Now, this micro-content is what we call an outreach program. In micro attention span, you got to have content with enough amount of information. You got to have training loaded with creating clarity, not creating confusion. Google creates more confusion than it creates clarity, which is great for you because you’re going to create more clarity then you create confusion and then you’re going to bring them into some recommendations which are based on your experience. And finally, they’ll buy your product.