I heard a speaker discuss the topic I’m about to share with you and the fact that you are reading this email proves his point. As the speaker addressed his audience he boiled down the primary difference between a successful, thriving business and one that continually struggled to increase sales. He then asked a simple question, “What do the following SUCCESSFUL companies have in common?”
He then listed:
Most in the audience quickly screamed “the internet” or “advanced technology” or similar. The speaker challenged the group further and only said “it’s much simpler than that.” In the end, he went on to explain that the single most valuable business asset a company has is:
“Their Ability to Grab and HOLD Their Customer’s Attention!”
This means that “attention” is your single, most powerful tool in gaining and retaining your customers year after year. If you think about Facebook or Twitter you will quickly see the correlation because they have an audience of hungry, rabid fans that literally live out their lives on these mediums.
I’m not asking you to create the next Facebook or Twitter but if you expect to grow for years to come you must find a way to grab your customer’s “attention” and hold it tight.
How are you going to do that?
Here’s a quick process that you can start doing to help you grab and hold your customer’s attention:
1. Focus: It’s nearly impossible to grab the attention of an audience that you have never touched. If you don’t know what is important to them then how are you going to provide an attention grabbing benefit? You can’t. Therefore, your first step is to focus on known niches or customer types that you have had success with. You should know what they buy, why they buy and any interesting quirks about their industry.
2. Facts: Assuming you started with a focus in step #1 the next phase is to list the facts that supports your theory. In other words, you should be able to spell out, factually, how you assisted this market niche. It could be sales growth, it could be geographic expansion or it could be increased profits. Whatever you can turn into a number becomes the facts that you build your campaign upon.
3. Face: With your “Focus” and your “Facts” in hand it is time to “Face” your audience with your new attention grabbing message. This means your message should immediately grab your audience’s attention and leave them begging you to “Tell me more!”
For example, if you have helped dentists grow their sales 27% this past year then your new message (to OTHER dentists) is: “We know that you need more sales, in fact we have a program that has helped dentists grow sales an average of 27% this year. I would like to meet with you and tell you more about it”
By leading your selling message with FACTS to a FOCUSED audience you are immediately getting to the heart of the matter. In this example most dentists would take you up on your meeting and if they AREN’T interested in increasing sales then you have succeeded in eliminating weak prospects.
So there is your challenge. FOCUS on a niche, get your FACTS in hand and then FACE your audience with ONE specific message that will grab their attention and make them ask you to “Tell me more!“