How to be persuasive with your customers?

Have you ever purchased something that you later regretted purchasing?

Cast your mind back to the first time you went to Circle, Kantamanto, or Railways to buy some footwear.

You either paid more for relatively inexpensive footwear or paid more for inferior quality.

The traders in these locations see you from afar and analyse your total make-up as a person, and they subconsciously pull in their persuasive strategies.

If you're not interested in their offer, they'll confidently tell you that you won't be able to find it anywhere else.

A fear-based closing strategy!

Body language is an important nonverbal cue that no salesperson should overlook.

When a customer is not in the best of moods, a salesperson must quickly tune in and empathise with whatever situation the customer is in.

Persuasion as a key sales driver drives customer advocacy and presentation of your proposition or ideas.

How well you persuade a customer will determine whether or not they buy your product or accept your service.

During my university days, I mostly rode Metro Mass Transit buses from Kumasi to Cape Coast.

On our way to Cape Coast one afternoon, a man in his mid-40s greeted us and prayed with us.

He began by emphasising basic safety and general advice that every passenger should follow.

We all mistook him for a driver but later got to know that he was actually a local medicine vendor.

How did we come to this realisation?

What started out as a normal conversation about safety and general health tips turned out to be a sales opportunity for this local medicine seller.

They simply use catchy phrases to entice customers to make purchases.

He sold at least 60 full doses of the medication.

Half of the passengers purchased something.

I was always awestruck by the persuasive selling styles used by local medicine sellers on the majority of public buses I rode.

These observations and experiences have stayed with me since I began working in sales.

It is an understatement to say that the power of persuasion can break down barriers or soften the hardest of hearts.

As a salesperson, you are competing for a customer's or consumer's share of their pocket or purse.

Get the customer's attention by summarising the current economic situation, market trends, and the customer's business, then present your proposition piecemeal so there is excitement at the end.

Surprising a customer should be a core component of making a proposition.

Explaining how your unique selling proposition meets his or needs guides in purchase decision.

Customers today have a broader range of interests and are more sophisticated than in the past.

They have more knowledge than you can imagine and are technologically savvy.

You can't just sell a bad product or service and force the customer to buy with just any kind of closing strategy.

You may succeed in the short term, but repeat purchases of the product by the same customer will be non-existent in the long term.

Ruskin posits, "He who has the truth in his heart need never fear the lack of persuasion on his tongue."

To effectively persuade, a salesperson must demonstrate sympathy, moral courage, human understanding, and kindness.

Most effective salespeople? look at the smaller picture of things-doing small things, in order to entice customers to buy.

They establish value-based relationships with their customers by capitalising on the company's investments in the customer's business to extract additional value from the customer.

Even if he? doesn't have what you're looking for, he'll tell you to wait and he'll definitely find it for you.