Consumers today, both individuals and businesses, are more discerning in what marketing they respond to. They inundated from the time they wake up in the morning till the they time they hit the bed at night. They are completely surrounded by marketing messages-from the clock/radio's ads when they wake up, through the billboards, direct mail, cold calls, and signs stuck anywhere and everywhere a sign can be stuck, to the ads on TV just before they go to bed. They live in a world where they are bombarded daily with tens of thousands of messages trying to sell them something.
They've learned to tune the messages out. They have developed their own unique mental white noise machine that blocks the constant marketing out.
They don't trust the messenger-and they don't trust the message.
How can you break through the white noise defense prospects have developed? Not by continuing to do what you're doing. You can't simply do more of what you're doing that isn't working and expect different results. You have to learn how approach prospects in ways they accept and respect.
Brian Carroll has a very interesting post on his blog that addresses this point. Brian encourages salespeople to quit thinking about selling and being thinking about building relationships with prospects before the prospect needs or wants their service. Brain calls this beginning a conversation that informs. I call it turning selling into education that eventually comes back to selling. Whatever you call it, salespeople must change the way they view prospects, themselves, and what the very nature of selling is.
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