by Sean D'Souza
When correctly deployed, the trigger bypasses the ‘kiss of death’, and gives you permission to continue with your sales message. Because when a client asks you: “What do you mean by that?” they’re actually saying, “Tell me more”.
No cop car for the next 100 km! Hey, would you slow down or speed up? It’s the ‘cop-car’ that makes sure you stay alert. In your message, the ‘cop-car’ is the ‘problem’ that pops up ever so often.
And it’s time to tell them more, by reverting back to the ‘problem’ all over again.
The ‘problem’ all over again? Why are we going backwards?
Remember that police car?
The one that caused you to slow down when you saw the red and blue flashing lights? Well, imagine a situation where you indeed pass the police car, and then come across a giant sign that says: ‘No cop car for the next 100km. Guaranteed’.
What are you going to do?
You know it as well as I do. You’re going to speed up, aren’t you? And why did you speed up? Because the problem has gone away. You no longer feel the threat of getting a speeding ticket. And that’s exactly how a customer feels if you don’t implement the roller coaster effect.
So what’s the roller coaster effect?
Even if you haven’t actually been on a roller coaster, you know what I mean. A roller coaster goes round and round and up and down. The round, round, up and down is what makes the customer get all excited. If the roller coaster were simply to do one big upside down turn and nothing else, the roller coaster ride would be over in a matter of seconds. And so it is with your customer.
Your message starts with the problem. The problem gets the customer’s attention. Then the solution kicks in. To keep the customer’s attention, you have to bring up more detailed information about the problem. That gets the client’s attention all over again. And so it goes. The problem gets the heart rate up; the solution gets the heart rate down. (We even use this roller coaster effect in live presentations, workshops, sales letters—and if you noticed, it’s all over the pages of this book).
When you bring up the problem, it’s like the first turn on the roller coaster. They’re excited. Then you bring up the solution. And like the people on the roller coaster, your clients have calmed down a bit. Now it’s time your marketing message got the customer excited again and again—and yet again. This factor of getting the customer excited is caused by the ‘problem’. Which means that the ‘solution’ is close at hand as well, to calm the customer down.
But what’s the purpose of bringing up the ‘problem’ and ‘solution’ so many times? Remember the purpose of the ‘problem’ and ‘solution’? It was meant to get your attention. But that attention—like in the case of the cop car—soon wavers. The roller coaster effect keeps that attention going, so that the customer continues to stay at full alert as you continue to deliver your message.
But you can overdo either the ‘problem’ or the ‘solution’.
Bring in too many problems, and the customer feels overwhelmed and feels unable to respond. Bring in too many solutions and the customer feels too relaxed. He/She feels no urgency to buy your product/service right away. So it’s a factor of ‘too hot’ or ‘too cold’, but then what’s ‘just right?’
Let’s take an example of a likely conversation:
Yoga centre owner: We help new mums quickly get back their pre-baby figure.
Mum: How do you do that?
Yoga centre owner: We find that mums put on a lot of weight during their pregnancies (problem), and want to get those extra kilos off (solution). But it’s not just getting the kilos off that’s the issue. Getting back to strenuous exercise can be difficult, and lead to injury (problem). We help mums get back to their pre-baby figure with injury-free yoga especially designed for new mums. And this helps new mums get back their pre-baby figure (solution).
As you can clearly see from the example, the conversation between the new mum and the yoga centre owner was richer and more detailed. You could clearly see the roller coaster effect, and how it helped both parties. The yoga centre owner was able to drive home the importance of choosing yoga (over other forms of exercise), and the mum was able to evaluate her choices as well.
But what if the conversation went like this?:
Yoga centre owner: We help new mums quickly get back their pre-baby figure.
Mum: How do you do that?
Yoga centre owner: We have yoga classes for new mums.
The answer still works, doesn’t it? The chances are that the targeting is so darned good that the mum may still show up for the classes. But by bringing the roller coaster effect into play, the decision has become compelling for both parties.
Would it be fair to say that the mum would now be ready to sign on the dotted line? Far from it.
All we’ve done so far, is get and keep the attention of the client. And all we’ve removed are three red bags. It’s time to move to conversion phase.
And get the rest of the four bags off that conveyor belt.
Summary: The Trigger
A trigger is simply the ability of a message to stand out and get your attention. A trigger instantly gets the attention of the brain. And when faced with the trigger, the brain–your brain or the client’s brain–has very little option but to respond very predictably.
The role of the trigger is to get your brain to respond with curiosity. And when the brain is curious, it asks predictable questions such as ‘How do you do that?’ or ‘What do you mean by that?’
It’s quite easy to water down the trigger. And when you water down the trigger, you get the ‘kiss of death.’ The ‘kiss of death’ isn’t always apparent, but if you haven’t activated the trigger, you’re sure to hear statements such as:
1) That’s nice
2) Hmmm
3) That’s interesting.
The trigger does a great job of getting your audience interested. But interest alone is not enough. You need to keep their attention, so that you can get the next four bags off the conveyor belt as well. And so you’ve got to make sure the roller coaster effect comes into play.
The roller coaster effect is simply the drama of bringing in the problem at regular intervals. Every time the problem pops up, the brain is reactivated and stays on full alert as you deliver your message.
You shouldn’t overdo either the ‘problem’ or the ‘solution.’ Roll out too many problems, and the customer feels overwhelmed and feels unable to respond. Bring in too many solutions and the customer gets too relaxed. He/She feels no urgency to buy your product/service right away.
Bag 4: The Objections
The moment we really want something to work, fear kicks in.
Saying yes to anything means having to commit. And commitment brings its own headaches. Which is why fear kicks in immediately. Our brains scramble to find all the possible reasons where things can go wrong.
So if we’re about to commit to a relationship, for instance, that’s when the heebie-jeebies really starts to kick in. Our brains become a bit scrambled, as we work out the ramifications of our decision.
Should we go ahead? Shouldn’t we? Should we?
We’re confused, because our brain seems undecided.
One part of our brain wants us to go ahead. The other part of our brain is bringing up all the reasons why we should stay put. The very fact that we have to commit to the relationship causes us to come up with every reason why the relationship may not work—just so we can make it work.
Weird, eh?
But that’s how our brains process information. When we make a decision, we want to prove to ourselves that we’re not making a mistake. And the quickest mechanism our brains have to avoid making a mistake, is to put up a wall of objections.
And that wall of objections totally depends on the level of risk.
But you know that already, don’t you? That you’d be plain silly to object like crazy when you’re being sold a cup of tea, as compared with a $20,000 car. The level
of risk ramps up the objections. The higher the risk factor, the more we object.
Or do we?
Actually we don’t. We seem to have about six-seven main objections for pretty much every decision we make (And then just variations of those six-seven objections). So yeah, if you think about it, you can quite easily come up with six-seven reasons why you shouldn’t buy into a $2 cup of tea. Just as you could come up with six-seven reasons why you shouldn’t be blowing $20,000 on a car.
But come on. Do we really have the same number of objections when the decision is trivial, as compared with a big decision like buying a house, or a car? Apparently size doesn’t matter.
Let’s take an example.
Let’s say you have two free tickets to go see a movie. Let’s say those tickets are valid until midnight tonight. Let’s say the movie you want to see is running and there are seats available. And let’s tip this totally in your favour, and throw in two packets of popcorn and two ice-cream cones as well. Are you ready to go?
You would think so, right?
You would think that if all the stars were aligned in favour of you going to the movies, you would be bolting out of that door. But incredible as it may seem, you’re kinda putting up a wall of objections.
Objections are not restricted to commitment alone. Even with a ‘free pass to the movies’, you are still able to come up with several reasons to stay home and watch reruns.
It’s too rainy and cold to go out tonight.
But who’ll take care of the kids?
The show’s too late, and tomorrow’s a work day. There’s not enough parking at the cinema.
We’ll end up having dinner and blow the budget.
And yada, yada, yada.
So it follows that even if you have the best product or service in the world, and if you have all your urgency factors in place, there’s still going to be a decent amount of objections to whatever it is you’re selling.
Of course, most of us wish these objections would just go away.
We so wish that the customer wouldn’t be so nit-picky. And that the objections would just disappear. But they don’t.
The objections don’t go away, but it’s important to recognise that objections are not a NO. They’re just obstacles. Obstacles that need to be removed.
At no point has the customer said NO to the offering. Uh, huh! They could have said NO, and that would be that. But that’s not that.
They’re not saying NO.
They’re saying, “Yes, I want to go to the movies, but can you remove these crazy obstacles?” And as you can see, our job when getting a point across, is to remove those crazy obstacles. So that the person making the decision, is able to come up with their set of objections—and you in turn are able to logically overcome those objections.
Objections are not your enemy.
They are your friends. An objection literally means that the person who’s doing the objecting, wants to take a decision to buy your product/service or idea. If they didn’t care about the product/service, they’d just walk away.
In every commitment or purchase scenario, the ‘buyer’ is going to have objections. Hiding the objections doesn’t speed up the ‘sale,’ because the objections don’t go away in the ‘buyer’s’ head. It’s way better to bring up the objections and give each objection its due spotlight.
The fact that they’re hanging around to object, means they’re keen—at least at some level—to get you to convince them to buy the product/service. If someone is objecting, pay close attention. Because they are interested. Don’t shoo them away. They’re really the ones you should be focused on. Because they’re going to tell you all the reasons they don’t want to buy. And guess what? They’ve done all the hard work for you.
Now all you have to do is simply remove the objections, and you’ve removed one more bag: namely the objections.
Instead, most of us like to hide the objections.
Most of us secretly hope that the customer won’t bring up any objections. That the customer will blindly buy the product or service.
And that’s a silly hope.
Because we have objections for almost every transaction; everything we ever intend to buy will be peppered with at least a few objections. So why bother hiding the objections? Why not bring them to the fore instead?
Bring them to the fore? Won’t that kill the sale?
Ah, au contraire! What will kill the sale is a stubborn attitude to try and hide the objections. When a customer is confused, or has questions that need to be answered, they don’t usually pick up the phone and call you. They almost never email you or text you. Or send a carrier pigeon. They simply mull over the objection in their minds, and then they procrastinate.
The level of procrastination depends on the urgency.
If a customer needs to buy something right away, they will indeed call you; email you; text you; probably even turn up at your door.
And they’ll voice their objections. And that’s when you know you’re missing something in your message.
You’ll know that whatever questions the customer is asking haven’t been answered. It’s when you answer that question or objection, that the customer feels relaxed enough to go ahead with the decision.
Only a silly person would try and hide the objections in a sale.
Your customers are not two-year-old kids who accept your every word. As we grow up, we learn quickly that there are two sides to everything. Which brings us to two distinct facts.
Fact 1: That objections exist for every product/service.
Fact 2: That objections can’t be hidden. And that if you’re smart, you’ll not only bring up the objections, but defuse the objections as well.
Drumming up a list of objections is like therapy. Once you know exactly what objections could possibly pop up in a transaction, you feel this huge sense of relief. Because now all you really have to do is defuse those objections. But remember, make a list first!
So how do you defuse the objections?
You defuse the objections by being prepared. You need to list out every possible objection that a customer could possibly ask. And you list the answer to those specific objections. If a customer comes up with more objections than you have on your list, just add it to that list of objections.
Creating a list of objections is important.
In a face-to-face selling situation, a customer may have the ability to bring up the objections, and hey, you have the ability to give the answers—and hence defuse the objections. However, if your customer is looking at your page online, you have no such luxury. When you have a list of objections prepared, you can list those possible objections and then defuse them.
And listing objections isn’t just a good practice online.
It’s actually a good practice no matter what media you use for getting a message across. If you’re presenting an idea from a podium, there are going to be objections. If you’re writing an article or report, there are going to be objections. If you’re sending out an email, yes indeedy, there are going to be objections. And when you’re selling something face to face, by golly, there are going to be objections.
So why not put the customer out of his/her misery and take a proactive approach? Why not bring up the objections in advance? And then why not defuse each objection one by one?
In fact, as you’re bringing up the objections, you’ll notice the customer nodding. Yes, they’ll nod and they’ll agree with you—or ask further questions. And the reason they’re asking further questions, is because they want to be sure of the product/service they’re buying.
But there’s another subtle reason why the customer has so many objections.
The reason that we almost never consider, is that every sale is usually ratified by two people. So if a person buys a product or service, they’ll almost always go back and talk to their partner, husband, wife, accountant, boss, colleague, friend, etc. Most of us like to make sure we’ve got a second opinion. And even though the othe
r person may simply shrug and have no opinion, there’s always the outside chance that the other person will have an objection. The other person will say something like: “But don’t you think it’s too expensive?”
In most scenarios, you’ve got to overcome perceptions, and possible past experiences. And even then, the customer is likely to ask for a second opinion from their partner, accountant or see a review online. So any purchase goes through several filters.
And that’s when we’ll know if you’ve done your job well!
If you’ve anticipated and brought up all the main objections (even without the client prompting you) and then defused these objections, then here’s what’s going to happen. When your customer ‘sells’ the idea of a product/service to their partner/husband/wife etc., they’ll be able to counter the objection of the partner/husband/wife etc. That’s when you’ve really done a classic job. That’s when you’ve literally got the customer ‘selling’ your product/service onwards. And in ‘selling’ the product/service onwards, they’re now more committed to buying the product/service than ever before.
But you may ask: ‘If I wanted to find objections to my product/service, where would I start? And what if the product/service doesn’t exist?’ Let’s take one answer at a time. As far as starting goes, there are three core areas where objections pop up.
Your brain does strange yoga positions, long before you enter a yoga class. If you believe that yoga is all about flexibility, then that’s a perception—not reality. And the perception is enough to prevent you from even considering yoga as a form of body and mind fitness.