Marketing 101 - Rule 4
Eye contact.
Flirtation.
Conversation.
Dating.
Engagement.
Marriage.
Honeymoon.
There are established sequences to relationship interactions. Birds squawk at each other and chase one another. Rabbits hop over each other. Giraffes lock necks and try to tip each other off balance. Rams snort and paw the dirt.
Whether sexual interest or competition for territory, the entire animal kingdom follows protocols, some alluring and others downright silly looking, to communicate their interest in or disdain for one another.
Only humans seem to have the ability to mix the signals and repel one another when trying to attract. Think of the last time you saw a Kirby vacuum demonstration or received literature from Jehovah's Witnesses. Or a telephone solicitation as you were running out the door, and you answered only because you thought it was your mother calling. Were you attracted by the next words you heard?
The people approaching you for sales or fund-raising or votes all mean to be in attraction mode. Isn't it therefore amazing how many are able to offend you or annoy you within the first three minutes of contact?
Even if the Hello goes well, in order to get to the point and not waste your time (or theirs) salespeople are going to jump right into their pitches. Not quickly enough to tell you exactly what they're selling and for how much, not quickly enough to suit you, but far quicker, in most cases, than the time it will take you to think about how dirty your carpets are and how much better they would look when cleaned by a $2000 vacuum!
Now that you've thought about the shoe being on the other foot, where you're the person being accosted by a pitch for something you haven't thought you needed, can you empathize with your prospects as they see your ad or receive your email?
Connecting to the conversation they're already having in their mind is the starting point. Not jumping from Hello into Marriage in a giant leap. Follow the courtship plan, the flirtation, the detection of reciprocal interest, the leading but not too far or too fast to the next step of conversation and dating and engagement.
Sales pitches fail when the marriage proposal precedes any interest. Keep your prospects with you, every step of the way, or rather, you stick with them, at their speed.
Rule 4 of marketing is take baby steps in the sales process. Make each step so easy for the other person that it's indeed easier to take it than to avoid it.