The Pathetic Reason You're Broke While Your Competitors Get Rich

"I'm just looking."

"I'll think about it and get back to you."

"While you're at it, could you also...?"

What's your response to these? If you're like most business owners I talk to, you likely say something like...

"Sounds good!" or "No problem!"

These are terrible answers. They need to be removed from your vocabulary immediately. These generic, passive responses are not creating respect or helping you extract more money from your customer.

They're leaving you broke, weak, and ready to throw in the towel.

You may think that tolerating these half-assed answers is you being patient, understanding, and giving the customer "space" to decide. You may have even been rewarded for this in the past, further solidifying these behaviors.

But if you jog your memory just a little, you'll remember all the customers who walked out of your store without buying.

You'll remember all the customers you spent time creating quotes for, presenting to, and responding to even though you had better things to do, all for them to NOT buy.

You'll remember all the customers who asked for "just one more thing" for no extra cost, that caused you to end up doing the job nearly at cost.

I'm sure you've tried to block these out, but sit with these memories for a second. Remind yourself of the pain. Of the disappointment. Of the anger.

The good news is, there's hope. But we need to sort out the space between your ears first.

Your Customer Is Not Smart, So Don't Treat Him Like He Is

We give too much credit to every person who comes into contact with our business.

We act like they've done their research, they've considered their options, and have made the "correct" choice of doing business with us.

Meanwhile, the average American is fat, divorced, and broke.

Intentional thought and behavior are unicorn levels of rare. Most people who interact with your business can't get out of their own way.

We cannot treat them like they know how, when, or why to take the next step in our process.

We must give them clear, direct instructions on what we want them to do next.

If we fail to do this, the customer is left to decide what to do. As I've already mentioned, they're not good at making decisions for themselves.

We cannot let that happen. We must take responsibility for their well-being. And their well-being is directly correlated with them giving us their money.

But most businesses don't do this. Why not?

You've Been Trained that Being Timid is Good

I'm sure you've heard it from relatives, old coworkers, or the random conversation on your local street: "That rep was pushy, I just wanted to look."

We get fed these narratives that being direct is "pushy", and that's a bad thing.

But you know what "pushy" does? It gets results.

It gets the people who want to buy through the system, and the ones who don't out of the way.

Why waste time being nice to tire-kickers? Their whole M.O. is to waste your time.

Every minute you spend time with them is one less minute you can spend on a customer that will follow orders and give you money.

Once you've gone through initial qualification, if they're not ready to move forward, move on.

But most businesses don't operate this way. They let customers come in, look around, try things on, take pictures, then leave.

All without saying anything more than "Let me know if you need anything."

Newsflash: they won't.

And each day you let this continue, you get closer and closer to not having a business for them to walk into.

So, if that doesn't work, what are you supposed to do?

Tell Them Exactly What to Do, When It Needs to Be Done

It's hard enough trying to run a profitable business as it is. We cannot take any chances that our prospects know everything they need to know when they first interact with us.

Because they don't. So, we must tell them.

It starts with the marketing.

"Click Here Now to Claim Your Free Gift."

What do I want them to do? Click here. Now. And what do they get? The free gift.

There's no room for interpretation. That's the point.

They click the button, the next window opens and says: enter your email below so I can send it to you.

It doesn't say "If you'd like a gift, let me know. An email would probably be a good way for me to send it to you, but it's up to you."

That would be insane.

It makes so much sense when making ads, but no one takes it into the sales conversation. It gets abandoned.

Imagine a clerk at a clothing store: "Hi! Welcome in. We're running a special sale, only for today: 20% off jackets and 35% off shirts, which do you want to check out first?"

The customer, after getting over there shock of someone actually being helpful, would say "the shirts."

"Great, come over here. These are the shirts on sale. What's your size? Medium? Great. Here are the mediums. Do you have a a specific color in mind? Blue. Ok, I have two blues. Which do you like better? This one, or that one? This one? Perfect, I'll set it aside for you."

You can do this in any business. Businesses just don't. Then wonder why their close rates are low.

Customers don't know what they're doing. And you're not helping.

Stop assuming they're smart. Stop assuming they know what they want.

The business that is the most direct is the most helpful. And the most helpful business is a profitable business.

Start giving orders and watch your revenue rise.