Understanding your clients mindset

Psychology and mindset play a big role in how we function as individuals. We are being bombarded with information and messages all day long. Whether you are watching TV, browsing online or taking a stroll, the chances are you are being marketed to in some way by different brands.

Our mind has the task of processing this information and making sense of it all. However, this week's blog is not a lesson in psychology, rather it’s all about understanding your clients mindset. Now, you may be thinking, “why is this important?”

Well, the simple answer is once you understand your clients or prospects mindset, you can adapt your marketing and sales interactions to achieve favourable outcomes. There is nothing more frustrating or disappointing when you think you’ve created a really good piece of marketing content or delivered an engaging sales pitch, but you’ve walked away without your desired result.

Sure, as we highlighted a few weeks ago in our blogs, being in business is a marathon and not a sprint. Therefore, you should always have an eye on your medium/long term objectives and put the processes in place to achieve your goals. However, everyone likes quick wins and they help motivate most of us to actually exceed our objectives in the long run.

When most business owners or in fact, people, are making buying decisions, they go through a number of stages. The exact number of stages or the duration of each stage largely depends on the individual and the investment involved.

For example, if you were hungry and wanted to order a takeaway, you would maybe narrow down your choices very quickly and make a decision within 5 minutes. In contrast, if you were looking to buy a new car, you would spend considerably longer researching your options and trying to find the best make/model for your price range. This is because buying a car is a lot more expensive than ordering a meal and has longer term implications.

As a result, when you are looking to sell products or services to busy business owners, it is important that you recognise the varying stages that impact buying decisions.

Awareness
The first stage in understanding your clients mindset is to appreciate the awareness phase. This is where you should aim to build a top level understanding of what you are providing and the benefit to the recipient. For example, in the case of our partners who operate Digital Agencies and provide technology solutions to local businesses, this stage may involve introducing the benefits of technology and some of the key solutions offered.

At this stage, it’s important to peak the interest of the business owner without going into too much detail as it’s most likely the first time the business owner has encountered your brand and services. A good way to build awareness is through videos or marketing resources that aim to highlight the main benefits and lead on to the next stage of the interaction. In terms of your clients mindset, during this part of the process they are simply researching or browsing their options.

Consideration
This is where things start to get a little more detailed and where your client is narrowing down their choices. In most cases, your prospect has started to research different solutions and is now ready to start drilling into the right option for their business. At this stage, you should really be focusing on providing more information and insights into what you do and the price implications as well.

A good idea at this stage is to give a demo of exactly what you are providing so your potential client can see things in action. If you have any case studies, testimonials, these are good to show as well since they build further credibility and authority for your business.

The consideration stage is a time for you to make sure your business and products/services really stand out from the competition. Spend some time thinking about what makes your business unique, how your solutions make your clients lives easier and formulate a frictionless way to get started.

Evaluation
Once your prospect gets to the evaluation stage, they are very much focusing on understanding whether your business and product/service will be a good fit for them. Some of the questions they will likely be asking themselves include, is this right for us? Can we afford it? How will this benefit our business? What do others think about this solution?

During the evaluation stage, it is also likely that your potential client will be asking other people for their opinions. This group of trusted advisers may include employees, friends, family and even their customers. Therefore it is important that you realise that you may need to factor other stakeholders into your marketing/sales activities as often decisions are made by committee rather than an individual.

Justification
Every decision that we make, often does have a period where we need to justify or validate that decision. As human beings, we are all familiar with second guessing our decisions. Did we make the right choice? Are we 100% sure? These types of questions are prevalent when we are trying to self evaluate our decisions.

Therefore, at this stage you need to recognise that your potential client is now trying to justify their decision. Your role at this stage is to help the business owner justify the reason for doing business with you. For example, what is the opportunity cost of not moving forward with you? What are some of the pain points that will continue to linger if the business owner decides not to proceed? What are they doing differently in comparison to their competitors?

By having an understanding of the justification phase, you can ensure that you nurture your clients along in the right way to achieve favourable outcomes.

Acceptance
The final stage in understanding your clients mindset is the acceptance stage. This is where your prospect has accepted your product or service and is ready to move forward. At this stage, it is crucial that you offer a seamless way for the business owner to make a purchase.

You should consider your onboarding process and make this as simple as possible. For instance, how do you accept payment? What information do you need to get things started? What are the support mechanisms available?

Having a thorough appreciation for the acceptance stage can ensure you move swiftly to closing your client and getting started on fulfilling your obligations.

Summary
As we have seen throughout this blog, there are lots of stages that a typical client goes through before making a buying decision. However, once you understand your clients mindset and the different levels, you can position your outreach programme in the right way to deliver consistent results.

To find out more about how we help our partners with all aspects of launching and scaling a successful Digital Agency, please contact us today.

Until next time, take care.