What Are Your Prospects Scared Of?

When you really break it down there are only three things that keep a client awake at night... 

And when you address their fear you will automatically become the trusted solution.

The trick is to uncover the #1 concern that is held by your prospect and then match that concern with a guarantee. Some prospects may have more than one fear but there will always be one that is the major factor in a buying decision.

If you look at your ideal client (your avatar) you will already know what their biggest concern is.

Working through the process of identifying your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) will allow you to position your company in a particular niche (e.g. custom homes on sloping blocks/duplexes/etc). Looking at your previous clients to establish who your avatar is (professional couple 30-35 with kids/retired couple 60+/etc) will enable you to identify their number one fear.

Quality - Speed - Budget

Think about the last client you signed up to a contract. After spending 6 months specifying and quoting, you probably had a fair idea what made them tick.

So what was it? What was their top priority?

Was this their third or fourth home?

Did they want this one to be just right?

They had the money, they wanted a quality job, they wanted it as soon as possible AND they wanted a good deal.

So they wanted all three?

Look again. One factor trumped all the others. They want to be in as soon as possible and they don't want to pay more than they have to, but above all else this is their dream home. They want it to be just right.

So What Keeps Them Awake At Night?

Quality. Not speed, not budget, quality is their prime concern.

We'll get to the other two a little later but for now let's focus on this particular concern.

If you address this concern in your marketing you will be speaking directly to your avatar. You'll enter the conversation going on inside their head and BOOM! You have a new enquiry.

We achieve this by using a Marketing Hook which is a single sentence that speaks to your target market, identifies their situation, proclaims a new idea and offers a guarantee.  Something like 'Professional couples looking to build a family home in xxxx can now choose their selections online and have their questions answered within one working day...guaranteed.'

If you were to place an advert on Facebook showing a professional couple with a tag line you would speaking directly to your ideal client. Which builder do you think the prospect is going to call?

The one that says 'New Home - Renovations - Extensions - Commercial - Industrial'? Or the builder that speaks directly to them in their advertising?

Proposals

So that's an easy way to attract prospects into your marketing funnel where you can nurture them into a quality prospect with information emails.

But what happens after 6 months, will they remember that you are the builder that ticked all the boxes months earlier?

Of course not. When it comes to the proposal, there is no such thing as a sure thing. Even if you have followed the sales process for builders and eliminated your competition to leave yourself in a tender of one, never assume the customer will sign a contract and proceed.

The proposal has to cover all bases. Address all those questions that enter the customer's head when it comes to crunch time.

You'll notice I am now calling them a customer instead of a prospect. And that's because when you follow the sales process for builders you change the relationship before a proposal is submitted which means you are 20 times more likely to win the job. 

Anyway, you can easily cover all those questions that are appearing inside the customer's head just by adding all those FAQs that are currently on your website into your proposal presentation. Add all those testimonials at the same time and your personal story that appears on the about us page.

But most of all, make sure your proposal is set up to address that #1 fear.

And you do that by using a Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

The Guarantee

Really the UVP is just a fancy name for a guarantee. But don't overlook this crucial component or underestimate it's importance.

'Quality work guaranteed' is not going to cut it. What does that even mean?

Try something like 'Every home must pass our 100 point quality control check before we handover the keys,' or maybe 'Your home will be 100% defect free or we will fix it within 30 days...guaranteed.'

You see, when we have a fear of something it is normally linked to a specific problem, such as a worry that the builder will not come back and make good on defects, or that they will cut corners in the build process and not deliver on the level of quality that we are expecting. So addressing those concerns with a standard claim that we 'build quality homes and we have been in business since the dawn of time,' is not going to resonate in the same way as, "If you are not happy with your home for any reason whatsoever, I will give you your money back." How's that for a powerful guarantee? Would you trust that builder? Sure you would. Would you believe that they are going to deliver on everything they promised? Well if they don't you can get a refund, so what's to lose?

Reversing The Risk Gets The Sale

This is known as risk reversal and it is extremely powerful.

Don't believe anyone can make such a guarantee? I've seen it done. And it's working right now.

I'm not saying you should do it, but think outside the box. What scares your prospects? How can you overcome that fear and put their mind at ease?

What is their number one fear and what are you going to do in order to address it?