“So, it’s been interesting today listening to your clients talking about the models that you have implemented, and they have obviously seen an increase in their sales and enquiries. I mean, why do you think that’s had such a big impact?”
I think ultimately the model is focused around human behaviour. The background to what we do as a business is …. we’re a bunch of nerds really, it’s behavioural psychology, behavioural selling – how and why people do anything and when you go sort of from A to B you go through change. It might be – getting divorced, it might be brushing your teeth, or it might be being in the supermarket and picking up some coffee and putting it in your basket. That’s a change process. You have to physically do something, but you go through a number of a stages. 9 times out of 10 we spend most of our lives in indifference, we don’t sort of care about anything because it’s not had an effect on us. You know, you can flick through a newspaper and see a hundred ads, but you don’t really see them, unless of course you have an interest in something and then “I need a new conservatory”, you see conservatory ads everywhere. Similarly when you buy a car, the minute you decide you want to buy a particular car, you see them everywhere, yet they’ve always been there but you block them out, because you live in indifference and you are not interested. The minute you become aware of something, the brain focuses, it goes “you’re interested in this, I need to make you aware that there is one there, and there is one there, and there is one there”. So that’s sort of how it starts and where there is a very, very early stage you then go through into consideration which is actually what can I do to sort of satisfy this need, or this urge or this want. Once you have considered that you go to preference, from preference you go to intention and from intention you go into action and you actually do something and in the case of when you buy something that final stage action is actually a purchase. Supermarkets are really good at it because they put all the stuff at the front of the till that you can go very quickly from awareness, consideration, preference, intention, action – done – I’ll have that. They really understand that process.
So the model is built around that so actually all we’re helping clients do is align the way that they market their products and services to the actual psychological way and the behavioural ways that people actually buy and once you do that, then you will have aligned with them naturally rather than trying to force the issue and it’s changed a lot over the last 5 to 10 years. 10 to 15 years ago most marketing was aimed at people that were at the intention stage, almost preaching to the converted. They are “I’m here to buy this”, there’s an ad, “I’ll buy it”, but because of mobile phones, 4G, Facebook, Google and all that sort of digital nuance we now live in, what it means is that people are starting to look for things and talk about things way sooner. Does that make sense?
Particularly you might see something on tv late at night “oh I quite like the idea of that”, but the next morning you’ve forgotten about it and get on with your life, but now you pick up your iPad, now you chat to people on Facebook about it. So, the key with the model we implement is helping clients start to harness that approach and actually start generating enquiries and leads and potential customers much earlier in the process. So that’s the whole idea behind the model and what we put in for people.
