Sell The Destination
By Paula Morand
I remember visiting two travel agents when I was planning my first big sun vacation.
It was years ago, before there were dozens of newsletters of special offerings arriving in my Inbox every month, all trying to entice me to go somewhere at great value. It was even before you could actually book your air tickets on line from your home computer.
The first agent was meticulous in her approach. She absolutely overwhelmed me with details about how I could buy cancellation insurance if something bad happened before I had to leave, about how early I had to be at the airport and how to navigate a change of planes at Newark, and how someone from the resort would meet me when I arrived and what I could do if for any reason that didn’t happen.
She covered all bases, and it was all good information, and I didn’t buy a thing from her.
Instead I bought my tickets from another agency down the street. I walked in on a bitter cold winter day to inquire about sun destinations and the agent smiled warmly and said: “I get it; you just got to’ get away from all this, don’t you?”
Then she painted me a picture of this amazing resort she had in her repertoire where they was space for me and my family. She showed me a picture of the beach and the empty Adirondacks where I could be sitting after just a five hour flight from my hometown. She told me to order a particular cocktail because it was like drinking sunshine and honey and how fresh the air was and how beautiful I would find the scenery from the beach.
I had my chequebook out in just a few short minutes. I could see me there. She had a ticket that would get me there. That was all that mattered.
It was years before I would encounter the work of Lisa Sasevich and learn the term she uses for the kind of selling the second agent did with me.
“Sell the destination, not the plane,” Sasvich advocates.
And that, in a coconut shell, is precisely what we need to do to dramatically increase our sales whether we are offering widgets or professional services.
How do you know what the destination is?
It is whatever your customer wants the most. It is what prompted them to give you some of their time, or to walk into your business.
If you are a dentist, it is that they want to get rid of a toothache and prevent it from recurring.
If you are a bookkeeper, it is that they need to know where their company stands financially with a quick glance so they can make better decisions. They also want to stay out of trouble with tax collectors.
If you are a professional speaker, they want to jump into a new place mentally, a place from which they can grow and prosper and live their best life.
If you are a sports coach, they want to train so well that they can exceed at their sport of choice.
You get the picture.
Sasevich says we need to focus 90 percent of our time on the destination of our customers, and only 10 percent on how to get them there.
In realistic terms, that means spending 90 percent of your meeting helping them envision how you can solve their problem and how nice it will feel to be problem free. Then spend 10 percent telling them how you deliver the services and in what format to get them to that happy place of buying.
Try it the next time you are tempted to spend too much time showing off your corporate literature or providing every little detail of your delivery service. Let them envision themselves with their problem solved.
Then have your contract ready for when they say: “Where do I sign to make this happen?”
Paula Morand is a leadership building, revenue boosting, strategy expanding keynote speaker, author and visionary. This dreaming big and being bold leadership expert and brand strategist brings her vibrant energy, humor and wisdom to ignite individuals, organizations and communities to lead change, growth and impact in a more bold fashion.
24 years, 27,000 clients, 34 countries, 15 books, former radio personality, 11x award winning entrepreneur and humorous emcee.
Check out Paula’s bestselling books on Amazon: “Bold Courage: How Owning Your Awesome Changes Everything”, “Dreaming BIG and Being BOLD: Inspiring stories from Trailblazers, Visionaries and Change Makers” book series; and her newest release “Bold Vision: A Leader’s Playbook for Managing Growth”.
For speaking inquiries email bookings@paulamorand.com or call toll-free 1-888-502-6317.