My husband and I were in the food court of a mall waiting for an oil change on my car. As we sat there eating our mall food (not recommended by the way), a man who looked to be in his early fifties stopped at our table, set a piece of paper down and no more than two seconds later walked away.
I picked up the paper and it was an envelope with a sticker of the US flag inside of it.
Eh?
Outside of the envelope was a message: “I am deaf and I sell these American flag stickers as a way to support my family. Please donate $2.00 or $3.00 if you can. Thank you.”
Of course my marketing brain kicks in and I think “Why would you only give two options only a dollar apart?” I don’t have $2 or $3 but what if I have a five dollar bill? What is your name? Show me a picture of your family.
I want to CONNECT with you.
I actually had a connection to this man. I was almost deaf when I was little. I survived in school as a young girl by reading lips. I watched TV by turning up the volume to the highest level and laying down on the floor with my ear pressed up against the speaker feeling the sound in my body.
After surgeries and healing, I can now hear, but still have hearing loss.
I had a connection to this man on a level and he didn’t give me the opportunity to connect with him. I think he would have been pleasantly surprised by our support of him and supporting his family.
My husband and I were still eating lunch then discussed this. We had quarters and change and some larger bills. Is it rude to give change? Is he really deaf? Is this real? Can we just give him money or is it more polite to receive the not-so-pretty sticker?
(Notice that because I was uncomfortable with the interaction, I was more concerned about being “polite.” When I’m uncomfortable, that is my default trigger to go to and YES, this impacts my marketing. What is your default trigger you go to when you are uncomfortable?)
Less than three minutes later, the gentleman came back to our table, saw there was no money in the envelope and picked up and walked to the next table doing the same thing.
I wasn’t committed enough to chase after him and he didn’t hear me say “Sir, wait a moment.”
(Hint, your potential customers will not be committed enough to chase after you either. You’ve got to make it easy for them to say YES to you.)
The gentleman made another round to more tables and I flagged him down, made eye contact and we gave him a few bucks.
Now this isn’t about the money. Or donating to people in need. Or even having a connection with him because of my own hearing loss, which was pure irony. (unless it wasn’t)
Here is what hit me: The entire experience would have been better if he would have stopped, made eye contact with us and smiled.
He seemed to be a pleasant man, but again, I wanted to connect with him.
My hubby concurred that if he stood there and even used sign language to say hello and hold up a picture of his family with a sign that said what he was doing THEN put the envelope down, we would have been engaged with him right away.
For your biz: Are you giving people the opportunity to connect with you or are you throwing your marketing out there quickly to just get it done?
Second, if he would have given us more than 2-3 minutes then we would have had time to stop eating, decide what we wanted to donate, pull out our wallets, put the money in the envelope and prepare our transaction with the gentleman. He came back so quickly, we didn’t even have time to do that.
We were in the middle of eating lunch together talking about our day and connecting. That was our focus.
For your biz: Do you invite people to work with you and if they don’t immediately say yes you tell yourself “This isn’t working.” And you quit.
I looked around the other tables and noticed that of the 7-8 envelopes he dropped off on tables, not one table donated.
I’m sure they were all lovely people. But I have to wonder if the biggest reason why people didn’t donate is because the simply weren’t given enough time to???
On his second round about 20 minutes later, two of the approximate 15 tables that were being occupied gave him money. (Our table and the table right next to us.)
Here is the one thing he had going for him:
- He had a clear call to action, although it was a little abrupt.
- He had a cause.
- He was consistent. He came around a second time.
For your biz:
- Do you have a clear call to action?
- Do you have a cause? Another way to look at this is do you have a benefit explained in why someone would want to buy your services?
- Are you consistent? Do you send out one email and if it doesn’t get the result you want, then you quit. Or one person says no and you make up a story that everyone else will say no?
- Are you giving something for people to connect to? Do people KNOW you? Do they know what is important to you? Or is it business as usual?
- Are you giving people various price points to buy something from you? Do you have various levels people can work with you?
Take a look at your programs and marketing and adjust them if needed based on these tips.
Look out next week for free access to my newly updated Soul Vision Marketing System, which will help you with more marketing tips for 2014. Coming next week!
