If you think providing people with what they want guarantees your success, you better make room to reconsider that thought as it’s only half the truth.
In the book The Secret of Selling Harry Browne preaches:
“The mistake most individuals make is in using their own values to determine what other people want. The individual who succeeds will be the one who provides people with what they want.
But to leave it at that will mean leaving your success or failure to the whim of blind luck. You will simply be guessing what others want, hoping you accidentally provide it.
The secret of success is: Find out what people REALLY want and help them get it!”
By selling what people really want it converts to immediate sales for your business and also long-term repeated sales in the future of your business.
You also build great customer relationships as you often make them feel that you really ‘listen’ to what they want and go the extra mile in providing it to them.
You are in harmony with their world and make them feel you are a dependable resource or means of helping them reach their goals and realize their dreams.
Economically speaking, being the “real provider” to your customers allows you to separate yourself from the multitude of businesses who just “get by” in the market (out of blind luck) and gives you an edge to demand high prices in the marketplace because you KNOW that your services or products are always in demand.
You just have to learn how to have a genuine interest in and concern for other people–which won’t really be difficult for you as it’s also part of human nature.
Don’t agree?
Answer this: Don’t you love it when someone asks for your help? When you know a relative or friend needs something, don’t you attempt to look for solutions for them? See?
Human nature.
Treating each person you meet in the marketplace as a friend or relative you are helping out, removes the need for you to put up a ‘face’ just to sell something.
You will make sure what you’re offering will actually help the other person–or at the very least be sure to offer them the very best that you have.
In the same light, if you know that the product or service you are offering really works well or would be really beneficial to others, why not start by offering it to family and friends instead?
It’s not like you’re pushing the product or service on them because you have no one else to offer it to but because you sincerely believe that their interests are best served by buying it.
Zig Ziglar, a successful businessman in the sales consultancy field, through the book Selling 101 emphasizes:
“The key is your conviction that you really are offering something that will strengthen the friendship or relationship because of the value of your offer. However, you don’t expect them to buy (and won’t permit them to buy) just because they are your friends and want to ‘help’ you”.