11 Things Every Client Wants

“I like it when people say no, because that's when the sales process starts.”

A salesperson is a fighter. A salesperson is feisty.

No matter what it is you’re looking to buy, the customer of today has more choices than ever before. While choice and competition provide a huge benefit for consumers and clients in the form of lower prices (see airline tickets and phone service), it makes the buying decisions harder than ever.Who do you buy from? The first one who asks? The cheapest? The one that rises to the top of Google search? Yet, when you do compare you find that most companies are offering the same product at pretty much the same price. In fact, I usually find that whoever is the cheapest today is usually not the cheapest a month, six months or a year from now. So now we’re back at square one and the question once again is: Who do you buy from? Or, better yet, what do you buy and what should you be looking for whenever you do?

What every client wants: 1-11

Not a salesperson, but an expert, advisor and resource willing to be a single point of contact.

What do you think is easier to find: a salesperson that pushes price and product, or a salesperson willing to be an expert, advisor and resource? Naturally, the former is easier to find, so why compete with the multitudes when you can have the field to yourself.

Quality: Things that sound dumb, but are true; you get what you pay for.
Service: If you are truly a single point of contact, then this should be easy. It means, for example, when I call with a problem, you don’t give me the name and number of someone in customer service; you call them for me, straighten it out and get back to me.
Convenience: The single, biggest growth and profit item in supermarkets today is prepared meals. Do you think it's for the taste? Just think of making your client’s life a little easier and save their time.
Value: Nobody wants to overpay, but almost everyone is willing to pay a little more if they know they’re getting more.
Save me time. (Speed). I want what I want and I want it now. Even a commodity like gasoline is sold by advertising things like “Pump, pay and go.” Get me in, get me out and get me on my way. 84% of two parent households are also two paycheck households. They have money coming in from two different places but what is the one commodity they have the least of: time. They are stressed out at work and stressed out at home. The last person they’ll allow to stress them out is someone trying to sell them something.

Make my life easier. (Ease). Name me someone who doesn’t want this. While you’re getting it for me fast, make everything as easy as possible. Clients love to buy from companies that provide a hassle-free experience. Years ago, when people had more time to kill, if something was difficult to implement, they worked through it. But now, if you make something the least bit difficult for a client to implement, they’ll just run the other way.

I was puzzled over the lack of response.

That was when I finally realised, your client is not going to tell you how to make life easier for them. Sure, the nice clients probably would be willing to spend some time to feedback to you. However, most people, won’t even care! They will simply ignore the message if it is too much trouble for them.
Let’s just say, I’d rather make it tough for myself, easy for my customers.

Frankly, the best expert is not necessarily someone who has all the answers, but always knows someone who does. With more choices and information than ever, it's easy for clients to get confused. If you can take that information organize it, act upon it and deliver it to your clients in a way that they can understand and implement it quickly and easily you have made yourself indispensable.

Knowledge. Make me smart without having to go out and learn this on my own. Give me the knowledge that enables me to understand what constitutes value in your industry. The smarter you make me the less likely I am to buy from a price cutter.

Expertise. Not a single one of your clients has the time or inclination to be an expert on what it is that you do. That’s what we have you for. If a client or prospect has to take the time to know as much about products and services as you do, they should be entitled to split the commission with you.

Information. Clients want to be kept up to date on the latest developments, improvements, products and, on what’s working for your other clients, because maybe, it could work for them. Don’t throw information at us and expect us to wade through it. If that’s the case, I can replace you with my computer. You need to take the information for us, organize it, act upon it and deliver it in a way that we can understand and implement quickly and easily.

Education. An educated customer is someone who will only buy from an expert, advisor and resource. Now while a stupid customer will buy anything you ask them to, they’ll also buy anything the competition asks them to. By consistently delivering these eleven benefits to your clients and prospects you will not only be giving them everything they want; but with the time you’ll be saving them and the extra knowledge, information and education you’ll impart, you will be enabling your clients to be more successful at what it is they do. And that will make you indispensable to them, not to mention irreplaceable.