We have all been taught over the years about the traditional buying cycle of customers where you start with a “Suspect,” and then it moves to “Prospect”, “Engage,” “Qualify”, “Propose,” “Defend,” and “Close.” These are the old-school sales techniques where you would be overcoming objections and having memorized closes and putting a square peg in a round hole. However, what has happened over the years is that this has changed into a new sales process and what
I want to teach you is how to insert powerful Authority Positioning Assets™ into the buyer’s journey so that you are the obvious choice!
In the new process, the objective is to change the “Calm” and help “Frame the problem.” Instead of the “suspect,” they start in a position of “calm,” which means they don’t even realize that they need or want your product or service. This calm is your prospective client or customer doing things the way they’ve always done, there’s a calm, but a change happens, or a problem arises. The next step is that they “frame the problem” and they look for solutions, they talk to peers, and they look for providers.
Here’s an example of how this would look; let’s say that you run three days a week, four miles per day, and you’ve been doing this for years. What if one day you come in and your calf is hurting, and it’s not a pain that you’re used to. The “calm” would be that you’re running just like usual. Then the problem or the change happens; there’s a pain, so you search for possible solutions, you would Google the problem, correct? You would pull out your phone or your device or your computer, and you would Google “my calves hurt after a run, or why do my calves hurt more than normal after running?”
Now you’re going to frame the problem to see what other people are talking about who have the same problem. Let’s say that you were this runner and you started seeing articles for buying new shoes, it probably would not even cross your mind to click on one of those ads because you bought new shoes six months ago and that’s not on your radar. So, if you saw one of the articles on Google or a podcast interview, and it was talking about your exact problem! What if you learned that even if you bought shoes in the last six months, you may need to buy a new pair of shoes with a different type of insole or instep or orthotic because if you run on hard surfaces for six months, you might run through them a lot faster than normal?
You didn’t know that was a potential solution. But now when you read this article or heard this podcast and someone that was explaining their experience with the same problem and their solution they found, you sit up and take notice!
Talking to peers would be either verbally talking to friends or peers or seeing reviews, third party proof. This is critical to understand as a marketer because research today has surfaced where our attention to ads has diminished but if we have and a friend or relative or contact online who has used a certain product to solve the same problem we have, we are so much more likely to make that purchase
How can we tie all of this into authority positioning?
You as a marketer or as a brand, insert Authority Positioning Assets™ into that narrative that we just described so when someone has that problem, you are the solution!
If you were a local shoe company marketing department, rather than relying on Google or Facebook ads, do some content marketing and write articles and blog posts and podcast episodes where the title and the content focus on problem and the solution you provide. In the case of this local shoe store who wanted to get in front of the people that in that city, they would want to write articles, teaching and educating their target audience using research and case studies that identifies the problem and the solution so that when that piece of content gets indexed on Google, people who are searching to frame up possible solutions, come across your article, video, or your podcast!
Let me tell you, you can produce one piece of content and then repurpose it by turning it into a quick audio, or a quick video for YouTube. You can even do it the opposite way; in fact, this is the way that I am writing this article you’re reading right now! I knew I wanted to teach you how to identify the buyer’s journey and insert powerful authority positioning so that you get in front of your target audience easier. But I didn’t want to start pulling up a document and typing…guess what I’m doing right now? I am speaking. I am looking at a graphic of this sales process and I am talking as if I’m teaching you in front of a class. I am an adjunct marketing professor at four universities, so I’m in “teaching mode”!
You could take this same approach and pick up the microphone and record the solution you provide your customers to a specific problem, and just talk it through! When you then have the audio, now that becomes a podcast episode. You could upload that audio file to YouTube with an image and it is a video that Google indexes very strongly if you put in the right title, tags and description.
You can take that audio file, and have it transcribed through a service like Temi or Rev to have a blog post. You have made one piece of content that took you 20 minutes to speak through that problem and solution and that one action is giving you a podcast episode, a YouTube video, and a blog post for your website, so Google sees that fresh relevant content! Your chances have been elevated dramatically that your target audience will find you!
As we enter 2019 make sure you have an Authority Positioning content marketing plan because Building Your Authority is Your #1 Priority™
Do you know how to “Pre-Frame” Your Expertise?
When you do, it will Begin Opening More Doors to Closing More Business
Limited complimentary copies of my 162 pg. book, Authority Selling™ are available for shipment. Details: www.AuthoritySellingBook.com