Psychological elements of customer acquisition

The word acquire originates from the latin ad quaerere, which means to gain/win/get/secure. The word expresses the thought that something must be performed or given to obtain the equivalent. Whoever is acquiring something must give or do something and obtains the equivalent in return. You should therefore persuade a customer to be able to secure something.

I am not going to tell you how to acquire “correctly” or give you a guaranteed formula for success with this article. In fact I will go a step further and say and that whoever claims as such is a charlatan.

Because: The success of acquisition pitches always depends on the situation and can be planned only to a certain extent – since you can actually influence only one of the two participating sides, namely your own. But even for the other, the customer side, there are possibilities of guiding the situation to some extent.

Your own situation

Let’s take a look at you first: When you conduct an acquisition discussion, it concerns a sales pitch. You want to sell yourself and the services you offer. And whoever would like to sell, should be in a corresponding good mood. How do you do that? Very simple, since it happens by itself, but more on that later.

Your first thought should be to create a positive resonance with the potential new customer. Because, irrespective of how well you prepare for a talk, your customer, as the recipient of your messages gives the meaning to your words – and not you. It is therefore important to generate goodwill at the beginning of a sales pitch. Or, if the situation does not allow that, to cancel the discussion and move it to a later date.

Right now you are probably thinking: „Cancel a discussion“ – the author probably has no idea of how it is for me. Of course I do! And believe me: Many times it is better to state the situation. When a problem is addressed, it loses its pressure, making the (new) customer feel as if he is understood and will be happy to start during a subsequent discussion.

Tip to articulate what you say: “I can see that you have a lot going on right now. When would be a better time tomorrow to contact you? Preferably in the morning or afternoon? “

The way to emotion

The molecular level of this goodwill is the hormone oxytocin – also known as the “ relationship hormone”. It ensures that a trusting situation is developed between two conversing partners. If you manage to be the person that stimulates the oxytocin production of your conversation partner through contact, then you “land” in his emotional memory as a memory – and that’s right where you want to be!

This almost answers the question of what is the most prudent way to acquire customers, since resonance can best occur during personal contact. Even though communication is almost always through electronic media today, you should try to make an appointment for a telephone call. If your contact resides locally in the region, it is worthwhile to invest the fuel money for a face to face discussion.

Tip to articulate what you say: “To avoid a ‘mail campaign’ and any misunderstanding I would like to make an appointment to talk to you personally on the telephone. Would it be alright if I called you on ...?“

Your customer doesn’t decide rationally, but always emotionally. Even if he is the most rational “type” that you know – move away from any kind of categorizing. He cannot do anything other than decide with feeling. Because, before we can consciously discern something, our brain has already filtered out a maximum of 100 bit/s from up to 50 million bit/s and made it available to us – this is what we actually perceive. The emotional assessment of a situation has a time advantage of a just about half a second!

You should therefore try to reach your counterpart emotionally. The rest comes later, such as prices or delivery periods.

Theoretically simple rules apply here, such as “Birds of a feather flock together”. Why are many business transactions made at the golf or tennis clubs? Both types of sport lead to not just swings from the player, but also provide fresh air, sportive competition and joint experiences with the involved partners. The golf course can therefore be said to be utopia in the context of acquisitions.

On the other side of the golf course

Now, except in beautiful Utopia, you cannot spend your professional life having discussions on the tennis court or the golf course. You need not do so as well, because you can carry a piece of the golf course with you virtually, by trying to build on similarities with your counterpart – called pacing. This is not about aping your counterpart or telling him what they want to hear, but about working out small commonalities. This includes body language or the speed of speech. Your first attempts should however be started within the family or friend circle, since pacing requires practice.

Take the time for a longer bonding phase and don’t attack your customer. As before, we can learn from the Arabian and particularly from the Asian region here. There it is common to get to know each other personally first before moving over to negotiations.

Once you build trust and are able to increase the oxytocin level of your counterpart, the rest becomes that much easier.

Effective sales arguments

What is the best time in a discussion to trigger the main argument for the sale? Two psychological effects face each other here: the primary and the recency effect.

According to the primary effect, things said earlier are retained better than those stated later. This initial information “competes” with lesser other information than the information provided later and therefore reaches long term memory more easily.

The recency effect is the opposite. It shows that information flowing in later has a greater impact than that received earlier. This applies mainly when this information is easier to recall – that is contains exciting information as compared to the earlier information.

In marketing and sales the recency effect has found its way in the form of the technique of reserve arguments: This technique states that the strongest argument should be saved for the end of an acquisition or sales discussion.

When is it time for the discussion

As already said, it is important to be in a good mood, when you attempt an acquisition. You don’t need any psychological tricks for that. Use situations that lead to your feeling good – in which your dopamine level increases and gets you in a flow. This is always the case when you have just received good customer feedback for instance. Use this mood, pick up the telephone and dial the number of the person from whom you want to get an order.

Don’t forget existing customers

Acquisition doesn’t just mean winning new customers! Also think about your existing customers and win them over. After order processing ask your customers specifically about their satisfaction. Criticism helps you to improve in the future. And when your customer is satisfied with you, request for a recommendation with colleagues or professional associations.

You can guide your flow by yourself to some extent in this way. Are you anxious about an upcoming sales discussion? Then briefly call a customer from whom you are sure to get positive feedback. Then pick up the receiver and dial the number of the customer from whom you have been hiding for long.

Moreover: No one can help you where one thing is concerned. When you want customers, you must speak with them. Even when you think you are an introvert and shy: You have given up on any kind of typecasting for your customers after reading this text. Do the same for yourself. You are not shy and introverted, but you just behave so in certain situations.

It therefore makes sense to analyze your own strengths and weaknesses, which have come to the fore in the past. What may have lead to past sales discussion failing? Often, it can even be helpful to get external feedback to check how you conduct the discussion. Then go to your next discussion with this knowledge, and pay attention to resolving your errors and developing your strengths.

Collect arguments, define targets

A good acquisition discussion demands preparation. Create a checklist that you can use for all coming discussions. This is a onetime effort and greatly facilitates coming discussions.

Defining your targets is the first step of preparation. What do you want to achieve specifically through this discussion ?

Don’t create lofty targets, otherwise you are preprogramming disappointment. The target of an initial discussion can certainly be “being admitted” to see the correct person, introducing oneself and agreeing on a follow up discussion. The order is not always the target! Therefore, define a realistic, an optimistic and a pullback target for yourself.

The realistic target is what you assume you will achieve. When everything runs optimally, you achieve more than you have predicted and then you have reached your optimistic target. Apart from that always have a pullback target.

This means an alternative to the attempted target. If you identify during a discussion, that your contact will definitely not give you any business, then it can be a pullback target to find out whether and when you may contact him again. Or whether your discussion partner has colleagues who could be interested in your services.

Identifying your conversation partner

A further step towards good preparation is collecting information. Who is the responsible person to the contact in the offices of your potential customer? Thanks to the Internet and social media you can already find out valuable information about your conversation partner before your discussion.

You can build your discussion strategy based on this information.

It is worthwhile creating a list of specific questions for this. These questions should be a series of open questions, which are usually identified by their initial alphabet:

• How is technical communication run in your offices?
• With which partners have you collaborated so far?
• What is especially important to you?

The objective of an acquisition discussion is to allow your counterpart to speak for the greater length of time, and speaking less yourself. Because your goal is to find out the need of your potential new customer to then formulate a fitting offer. Naturally, you must carry all facts in your head when your conversation partner asks you something specific. Therefore preparing for acquisition also includes compiling all relevant figures, data and facts.

The list of questions is a valuable aid not just during telephone conversations. Don’t hesitate to prepare a list of questions even for personal discussions. In this way you are able to check whether you could collect all the information, which you felt was important before the discussion.

Self-praise is no praise?

No! Don’t shy away from mentioning the advantages of your company openly, as soon as you have asked about the needs of your discussion partner - the kind of similar projects that you have already worked on successfully, the customers you have worked with and why it went well especially because it was you. You want to sell yourself and this includes the “properties of your product” – this has nothing to do with self-praise primarily. It is much more about working out the positive aspects that cover the needs of your customer. Therefore, observe the needs of your customer and identify what moves and drives him. Your arguments should be in line with this information.

Summary

There is no guarantee for success. Therefore keep your chin up if you don’t reach any of your targets sometimes – in spite of preparation and everything that goes with it.

Your potential customer gives meaning to your offer. And perhaps you simply called at the wrong moment, at the worst possible time. Doesn’t matter, because the quality of your sales attempts will improve with good preparation and some practice and you will have more success in the medium term.

What are you reading here? One of my sales tools. Therefore: Also consider how you can present your services to your target audience and strike out on new paths. The worst your counterpart can do is say “No”!