Donnie Bryant: The Surest Path to (Client) Seduction

It’s the oldest trick in the book. And yet, it’s not really a trick at all:

To seduce almost anyone, ask for and listen to his opinion.” — Malcolm Forbes

We’ve all heard about customer engagement, entering the conversation in the prospect’s mind, etc., and those are important concepts. But there’s something missing from these equations.

Likewise, there’s something missing from the strategy that says “The more you tell, the more you sell.”

You see, seduction happens with the ears.

You have to listen to your target audience. To do so, you can use:

• surveys
• emails
• comments on other people’s blogs as well as your own
• review sites like Yelp or even Amazon
• keyword tools
• tracking the response to different offers (how people spend their money and what offers they respond to says a lot about them)

You might not be able to listen to most of your prospects one-on-one, but you can pay attention to questions at large and address those issues.

I’ve spoken elsewhere about how questions create vision in the mind and how vision is the key to channeling desire toward your product or service. You don’t have to ask these questions directly to your prospects. When you talk about questions they’re already asking, you become part of the conversation that will determine the course of action they will take.

Notice, the questions should be ones your potential customers are already asking. Rather than talking about what you want to talk about, you should provide solutions for questions they’re actively thinking about, problems they need solved.

We get it wrong when we speak before listening. Listening opens the door for speaking. Studies show that the more you listen, the more interesting other people think you are and the more they like you. It also equips you to speak about exactly what they want to hear about, using the exact language that will resonate with them most deeply.

Here’s where we switch gears.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Men fall in love through their eyes; women fall in love through their ears.” In either case, we become enamored with what we’re shown or told.

Seduction comes from listening to what the customer expresses (showing interest in their concerns, being an advocate for their cause); love grows out of what you express to the customer.

Our problem is we like to express ourselves (selling the benefits of our product or service) before appreciating what our prospects are expressing about themselves.

It can be dangerous to speak much before doing a lot of listening. Just like on a first date. If you start “selling you benefits” before you’ve won your date’s affection and begun showing your interest in her, it’s probably going to be a short night for you.

On the other hand, if you make the investment of listening, showing her that she is important and special to you, she’ll be more likely to listen you talk about what you bring to the table.

And just like an attractive woman you’d like to try courting, there are probably plenty of other suitors showering her with compliments and offering her a good time. The best way to get her attention, according to Forbes, is not to be the loudest, or even the most attractive, but the one who cares enough to listen.

When it comes to your audience, you can listen to the collective questions using the ideas in the bulleted list above. You can solicit responses from people directly with

• specifically targeted blog/guest posts, asking for comments or replies
• Q&A during live presentation, webinar or teleseminar
• group discussions on LinkedIn, Facebook or other social media sites
• conversations with past and current clients
• asking questions in email newsletters.

You should listen to your audience continually and respond to the information you collect appropriately.

This is how you get customers, keep customers and grow the mutual lifetime value of your relationship with them.