“Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple”. Albert Einstein
“My ultimate ambition is to live a simple life with the frog I love”. Miss Piggy
Sitting on the phone the other day in a queue after pressing “3 for customer service”, I daydreamed of a simpler life where it was easy to give suppliers money for great products and services.
There’s something wonderful about simplicity, because buying stuff has become a bit complicated. When a company does present you with a simple way to get something done, it bowls you off your feet. It stands to reason that if you want to bowl your customers off their feet, simplify their life, and simplify your sales process.
Buyers should be able to buy in ways that suit them, not you. Here’s an example of both a complex (bad) and simple (good) sale:
A Complex Sale (Bad)
A recruiter recently sent us a note saying that they had “a few CVs of sales superstars” we might be interested in hiring. I responded almost immediately – “shoot me their CVs and I’ll take a look”. However, it wasn’t that simple – while most recruiters would shoot through the CVs, they wouldn’t. Instead you have to fill in a 6-page form to fit in with THEIR complicated way of selling, not YOUR simple way of buying. In other words rather than removing obstacles they create them.
A Simple Sale (Good)
We have recently been dealing with a wonderful business operator called Bev Holden who works at The Clear Thinking Partnership Ltd http://www.clearthinkinguk.com/. Bev helped us to on-board a client, and did so in a simple way that cut loads of work out of the process for us. Bev has such a great attitude summed up in the following line: “My job is to make things easy for everybody”. And she does. She clears paths, reduces steps and does so seemingly without effort. I have known her for a few months, but already I know that I want to work with her again.
3 Ways To Simplify Your Next Sale
Customers want their life made easier, not more complicated. Three tips to sell more by simplifying your customer’s life:
1. If you are asking a customer to fill in a form, think again. Can you do the form and simply ask them to agree to it on email?
2. Record your calls. That way you can take briefs verbally and have them typed up very cheaply.
3. Ask your customers this simple question: “How do you like to buy from us?” Then formulate your customer contact model around that. I like to buy from Marks and Spencer at Liverpool Street Station because they have a queuing system that means everyone gets a fair go. I don’t like to buy rail tickets at the machines at the same station because I’m always stuck in the wrong queue.
It’s frustratingly simple – make it easy for your customer to say “yes”, and they will say “yes” more often!
A nod to simplicity – some nice ideas for you to look at:
– Kraft’s simple product that mints money – http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/03/kraft-singles.html
– A simple way to choose your colour palette (great for PPT): http://www.colourlovers.com/
– The simplest and cheapest website to get anything done: www.guru.com
