The members (and a few selected guests) of the GKIC London chapter gathered for the March meeting on 17 March at “The Happenstance” on Ludgate Hill. Hosted by the indefatigable David White, members enjoyed another full and varied program of top-notch direct-response marketing education and entertainment.
David White kicked off the meeting talking about…
“The ONLY Four Ways To Lose A Sale”.
When you think about it, an interested prospect has these four choices besides buying…
1. Do nothing
2. Delay
3. Buy from a direct competitor
4. Buy a different solution
The common factor in all of these? The…
…potential buyer has insufficient TRUST in you and your solution.
The answer can be…
…tactical (through guarantees and other risk reversal, testimonials and demonstration of your solution)…
…or strategic (through positioning and building a position of trust as an authority).
Dan Kennedy has written a whole book about trust-based marketing…
…and I highly recommend this work.
Next, James Knight talked about a further application of the IMA system…
…how it can be used to identify the causes of stress and to manage and resolve that stress.
Now, a certain degree of stress isn’t always a bad thing. Without deadlines, for example, a lot less would end up getting done. And a certain degree of creative tension, different viewpoints if you like, can result in a better overall outcome.
BUT…there is the bad kind of stress that simply results in poor performance and inferior outcomes. And that can often happen when there is a clash of personality styles. For example, if you’re the kind of person who is very detail oriented and work methodically to make sure everything is correct, then if you’re forced to do something very quickly, in a lot less time than you think is needed, that will be stressful. That’s because you will not be able to do everything that you think is needed, you’re forced to compromise on your standards.
On the other hand, if you’re someone who likes to work fast, who believes “time is money”, for example, then you may well find that working with the kind of slower-paced individual described above will be stressful. Indeed, you might well find that not only are you stressed, but you’ll cause the other person stress!
Understanding the different personality styles, which is what IMA is all about, can help prevent these kind of conflicts and result in better overall results. Think about sales situations, for example. Causing your prospect to feel stressed is unlikely to help you make a sale.
Following James was Shahzad Nawaz with a fascinating presentation on pricing. More specifically about…
1. How consumers are a lot less price sensitive than you might think
2. The HUGE impact on your bottom line that small price changes can make
3. Why cutting prices is rarely a good idea (and will often cause bigger problems than what you’re trying to fix)
Lots of numbers and charts in Shahzad’s presentation, including an illustration of the idea of the “Magic Price”. That’s the price at which your profits are maximised. For those of a statistical inclination, imagine a graph of a normal distribution with profit plotted against price. As price increases, so do profits until a peak is reached. After that point, increasing prices leads to lower profits as sales fall away.
In the real world, of course, you don’t have a handy chart to identify your “Magic Price”. The only way to figure it out is by TESTING…the one real “Magic Bullet” in marketing, arguably. In the vast majority of cases, I would suggest, businesses are to the LEFT of that “Magic Price”…and missing out on potential profits. So, well worth testing for yourself a modest price increase, say 5-10%. You might well be pleasantly surprised!
More about Shahzad and how he can help you at www.aa-accountants.co.uk.
And more on the topic of pricing properly in No B.S. Price Strategy: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Kick Butt Take No Prisoner Guide to Profits, Power, and Prosperity
The afternoon was rounded off by the always impressive Fergus McClelland with a couple of exercises. The first one illustrated the importance of listening closely to what someone is saying…it’s surprising how often we hear something different to what is actually meant. And I’m not talking about subtle “hidden meanings”. Rather, through our own filters and internal “rules”, we sometimes jump to conclusions and “hear” something that actually wasn’t said.
The second exercise illustrated how we all have many associations to particular words and phrases. Understanding how this works can be used to both communicate better and also to undertake a little “mind reading”! For example, if I ask you to quickly think of a colour…
…it’s very likely that you came up with the colour I reveal at the foot of this post!
Another informative and stimulating afternoon with the opportunity to catch up with old friends and make new connections with like-minded business-folk. Thanks as always to David White for keeping the show on the road.
News of upcoming GKIC London events at the GKIC London website. The next members meeting will be on Tuesday 21st April.
And that colour most people think of? It’s…RED.