Is your sales strategy only 1/4 human?
Are you selling to the whole person or just a fragment of your potential buyer? Two Harvard Business School professors* reckon we are all driven by four basic desires: to acquire, bond, learn and defend. But most sales messages speak only to "acquire".
Try this framework to see how your sales message could adapt beyond the bottom line. Let's imagine that, like me, you are trying to sell workplace training programmes:
Acquire: How can you speak to your customer's desire to gain wealth or status? This one is easy for most businesses: it's at the heart of what you do.
"This training programme will help you earn more money; get promoted; find a better job; advance your career."
Bond: Sure, people want to get ahead. But they also want to get along with others. So how can your sales message tap into this deep desire to belong to a group?
"This training programme will help you gain respect for your skills; enable you to help others; feel like part of the team."
Learn: We are naturally curious creatures, so how does your sales message speak to our desire to expand our skills and knowledge?This should be pretty easy for a training company!
"This training programme will help you become a master in your craft; gain new skills; open you up to exciting new opportunities."
Defend: Finally, we are all aware of how fragile success can be, so how can you tap into our desire to protect what we've worked so hard to achieve?
"This training programme will future-proof your career; this is how you protect yourself against redundancy."
OK, that's easy for a training company. How about a tougher example: a company making software for sales teams?
- Acquire: easy. This software boosts sales.
- Bond: it gives your teams a shared set of goals.
- Learn: you technique will improve with constant feedback.
- Defend: we can help you spot problems before they knock you down.
Try it for your sales messages. Add a comment below if you want my feedback.
*Professors Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria discuss what the four drives means for business organisation in this article from Harvard Business School.