WOM Meets Customers Head-On

Today we’ll cover the idea of shortening your customers’ decision-making process with positive word of mouth (WOM). There are essentially 5 stages in the decision-making process. They are:

 

  1. Give the product a chance and transition from a “no” to a “maybe”;
  2. Check out the options and investigate different products available;
  3. Observe the product to check for potential benefits, features, and operations to see if it fulfills a need;
  4. Become a customer and purchase the first item. Customers will be discriminating with their first product as they form their opinion of the business;
  5. Purchase again and start spreading positive WOM as an advocate of the products.

 

Now let’s take a closer look at each one of these stages.

 

From “No” to “Maybe”

 

This stage is extremely important because if your potential customers don’t even take a second look at your products and/or services, you will have no chance of sealing a deal. This is why you need to offer credible information and well thought out pricing, guarantees, and incentives.

 

Investigating Your Products

 

At this stage, potential customers are taking a closer look at your product line to see if there is actually anything there that could benefit their life. This is when you need to make sure your hard information is readily available for customers to view and compare.

 

Trial Period

 

Customers often feel more at ease and are more inclined to purchase an item when there is some sort of a trial period in place. Often they want to try vicariously through someone else, so they there is absolutely no risk involved for them. A good way to offer this experience is through demo videos, product demonstrations, or a tour of your facilities. This stage may invoke a reaction of “I tried it and liked it. You should check it out too.”

 

Make a Purchase

 

At this stage, customers have assumed the risk of purchasing one of your products and/or services and are now evaluating how easy, convenient, cost effective, and satisfying your product and/or service is. At this stage a common reaction would be, “It was really easy to use and learn from. It’s really great, you should get it!”

 

Advocates for Yours Products

 

At this final stage of decision making the customer is immensely pleased with your product and regularly uses it and/or comes back for more products and/or services. They are likely telling everyone they know how much they like it, that they use it every day, and have already returned, or will be returning soon, to your establishment for more.

 

Earlier, we touched on the different types of purchasers. Now we are going to take a closer look at their characteristics so you can determine which tactics are best to use at the right stage of the decision-making process.

 

The Innovator

 

  • Wants to stand out from the crowd;
  • Know what’s hot and on trend;
  • Likes “strange” or “weird” new products;
  • Wants to be the first to try and will discuss it enthusiastically.

 

Early Adopter

 

  • Driven by excellence;
  • More concerned with possibilities than realities;
  • Always looking to be a leader;
  • Always looking for a new vision.

 

Middle Majority

 

  • Wants to be perceived as competent;
  • Concerned about practicality and easy comparisons;
  • Needs an easy way out if not satisfied;
  • Wants products that meet the industry standard.

 

Late Majority

 

  • Generally skeptical and wants to know the risks upfront;
  • Needs to shop around for the best deal;
  • Needs a support system;
  • Wants what everyone else has.

 

Laggard

 

  • Needs it to be completely safe and traditional;
  • Needs reassurance that nothing will go wrong;
  • Won’t try new things unless it’s the last resort;
  • Will search for loopholes and problems;
  • Wants to use it in the standard industry way.

 

As you can see, each type of consumer wants something different depending on their personality type. The key to successful WOM is to target and cater to each type of consumer. If you need help identifying the types of consumers you are currently helping and how to attract the types you are lacking, reach out to me for the resources and tools you need to get the job done.

 

Next time we’ll look at how WOM messages are delivered and what you can do to facilitate that.

Education Template

PRODUCTIVITY COACHING

Your time management is crucial to the success of your life and business.  If you had more time, what would you do more of?  If you had more energy, how much more could you get done in a day?  We teach you how to manage your time and energy in such a way that you can gain as much as 40% of your time back into your life.  What kind of difference would that make for you?  If you need more time, reach out to us for a free consult.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

If you could increase the productivity of your employees by as much as 40% would it change your profitability as a company? Engaged and happy employees are a crucial part of your company but most often employers don’t look at the financial impact this has on their organization. A healthy team makes a world of difference for you in your organization. If you have high turnover, internal bickering or clients who are complaining, call in a coach to assist with your employee engagement.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

True leaders are hard to find in this day and age.  Could your leaders be better at leading?  Do you ever have communication breakdown within your organization?  We work with the business leaders, management and influencers inside your company.  We help inspire them to live true leadership in work and home.  If you have turnover in your company, or if you have fighting and bickering amongst your employees, pull in a coach to help uncover the problem and create positive relationships inside your company.

SALES COACHING

Sales results are the fastest way to turn around cash flow in your life and in your business. Too often sales people don’t know the key behaviors that they need to track in order to create the success they are after. There are two key areas that are crucial to sales success.

 

  • Generating leads
  • Converting the leads to customers

 

True sales results create more time and freedom in your life. As you track your sales behaviors, you will see momentum and your productivity increase. As your productivity ur pipeline will fill up.

MARKETING COACHING

Most business owners don’t know where their marketing dollars go. They don’t track the numbers. Sometimes it’s because they don’t have time, sometimes they just don’t know which numbers are crucial for their marketing success. We build a tool that contains the marketing metrics that are crucial for you and we track the results. After we have begun to track our results, we modify our strategies and tactics to match what marketing vehicles are the most successful. Your marketing should generate business for you. Through coaching, focus groups, customer surveys and employee questionnaires, we can assess where your brand is, where it should be compared to your competitors and your plan of action to get there.

LIFE COACHING

What is that one thing keeping you from going to the next level in your life? Do you know what it is? Most people don’t. They have tunnel vision. They don’t have clarity of the big picture. They don’t know what their life calling is. They know they want to leave a legacy that spans many decades of time, but they don’t know what they could do that would actually achieve this. All of these things keep us from our true destiny. In life coaching we look at the behavioral, emotional, mental and physical elements that are keeping you from going to the next level. We help you see your greatest faults, your biggest strengths and how you can leverage them to create momentum. Life coaching can create massive change in short periods of time and can sustain it through ongoing accountability.

 

If you’d like to learn more about our life coaching platform and how you could change the course of your life.

BUSINESS COACHING

What is truly holding your business back from going to the next level? Is it you? Is it your sales? Your processes? Your team? Your cash flow or profit?

 

Business Coaching helps you look at five key aspects of your business:

 

  • Business Development – marketing & sales. Learn what methods people are using to grow their business the fastest. Discover how to get real ROI on your marketing dollars. Learn how to sell without having to be a “salesman”.
  • Infrastructure – systems, processes and your team. Learn how to build the business to run itself. Learn how to use technology in ways that create more time or money for you. Learn how to build a solid team of people that want to work with you for life.
  • Production – where you provide the deliverables of your product or service. How can you do things bigger, better and faster for your customers? What things hold you back from a true customer experience?
  • Customer Service – Finding the right customers and keeping them
  • Metrics – What numbers tell you the most about how your business is being successful? What numbers give you clarity on potential risks?

 

Business coaches know the questions to ask to find the metrics that are important to you. They can help you find risks. They help you see problems. They know how to take a business to the next level. They can help you find how you are getting in the way of your own business. They help you see what you don’t know even when you don’t know it. They see the common patterns that we all make in our businesses. Not only are they aware of the greatest things holding you back, they know how to create action that will create lasting and sustainable results.

 

A good business coach should be able to pay for themselves within 6 months of you hiring them.