Points of Compelling Relevance

For year's in selling we've talked about USP's or Unique Selling Points by which we could differentiate our offerings and make ourselves stand out to prospective customers from the 'white noise' of competition.

However I would submit that in the current market that it's not USPs but PCR's that we need and by that I mean 'Points of Compelling Relevance'.

A Point of Compelling Relevance is one that makes the prospect want to give us their left/right hand for whatever it is that we are offering them. It makes them want to sign up NOW and commit whatever they have for whatever it is that we are offering.

USP's tend to appeal to the intellect or the reasoning ability of a prospect - it speaks to the surface of the sale - the logical benefits available by considering the offering.

However a PCR speaks directly to the emotions or the feelings of the client where the benefit of the message is so relevant, so emotionally compelling - that they buy now - the rationale is over-ridden in place of the emotion. That emotion can be trust, greed, envy, profit, ambition, status but it is a compelling emotional trigger. For more on emotionally 'smart' selling click here.

Of course, to create Points of Compelling Relevance requires more thought and testing and tend to be unique to a particular prospect or prospect group but the effect is immediate and unconditional. They buy. Now.

Recession-Proof Attitude

Oil prices, sub-prime meltdown, banks in crisis, property crashes - things look tough.

There's no question that life in business is going to get tougher. But is that really a problem? Necessity is the mother of invention and when times are good there is very little innovation in business. Staff can charge high salaries and often deliver less results. In selling, less is required from sales people as the money just rolls-in from all the businesses flushed with cash.

Come the first winds of recession however and everyone starts to 'dig-in'. Businesses retrench, budgets are slashed (often reflexively) and people start to hoard their cash.

However to take an attitude of retrenchment in business and especially in selling is disastrous at a time like this. This is exactly the time to start ramping up your sales operations. Coach and train your people now in the best of relationship management techniques - how to find, engage and keep the customer. Many of your existing sales people probably have little skills in networking, influencing and closing business.

As others start to believe that there is less opportunity in the market place - this is the time when we train our sales teams in believing that there is more opportunity. The 'mind set' of the competitors removes them from the market as they fail to see opportunities that their 'attitude of loss' blinds them to.

Whatever we believe sufficiently in - we manifest. This is not  psycho-babble but real psychology. Our perceptions are created by our beliefs and expectations. When we expect things to happen they often do - because the brain and our perceptions re-aligns itself with what we expect to see  - thus if we see  opportunity, the brain will make what opportunity there is clearly stand-out from our everyday reality.

It still means targeted, effective, sales activity is required. But with more opportunities spotted, the competitors hiding in their recession 'bunkers ' and a greater expectation of success in the minds of our sales teams - we can recession-proof our businesses.