Find Their Thirst Through
Criteria elicitation—on the surface—is a very simple process. Applied to a crowd to find the thirsty, dry, and parched prospects, it involves asking:
“Why are you here?”
They will answer and provide the need that they are look- ing to fill.
To give you a reference point, let me also describe how it works in belly-to-belly selling. For instance, in person, if we were meeting to explore your buying, say, real estate (or any other thing or service) from me, I would start out by asking you:
“Why are you here today?”
You will answer with a statement answering this question, like:
“We’re just finding that our house is too small. I have my business at home now and with the kids still at home and run- ning around all the time, it just makes it really hard to concen- trate like I have to, to do the best job I can.”
APPLIED TO A MARKET OR CROWD
You would first create a database of people who have re- sponded to an online ad and/or a newspaper or magazine ad.
You may already have this list of people who have bought from you or have inquired about doing business with you.
You would then make a simple telephone call to a person who is in your target crowd with the question “Why are you looking for financial advice (or real estate or a widget) today?”
And they will answer. It is really important to record ex- actly what they say, because this information they give you is profit gold! Or they might answer, “Well, we are just looking at the real estate companies around here and wanted to check out your service.”
And you would ask again, “Okay, I understand, but why now? Why are you checking into real estate companies now?”
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And they will answer (again record exactly what they say),
“We are expecting a new child and need to get a bigger house”
or “We just retired and are looking to downsize our home” or whatever.
Then you would answer, “Yeah, that’s a good reason to move, isn’t it? I can understand why you would want to check into real estate right now. But just so I really understand your needs so I can make sure we are on the same page, what’s im- portant about downsizing your home?”
It is critical that you use the words that they provide to you and feed them back by asking “What’s important about X?”
This is what digs out their first-level values—the criteria that are of utmost importance to them.
And they will answer, “Well, we don’t need all that space and we also want to downsize so we can take some of the equity out and still have a nice smaller place and a more secure retirement.”
And then you would answer, “Wow, that sounds good, doesn’t it? I can really understand that you folks want to still have a nice smaller place and have a secure retirement. Awe- some. That looks really good. And tell me, just so I really un- derstand where you’re coming from, what’s important about a nice smaller place and a more secure retirement?”
Again you are repeating back to them exactly what they have said. This is the second level of criteria. (You are writing this all down as they give it to you.)
And they will answer again, “We want to travel and see all the places that we were never able to before.”
And you would answer, “Yes, yes. That feels really right, doesn’t it? You want to travel and see all the places you were never able to. Now, I’m just curious, and this will really help me to get you the perfect place and help you reach these goals. Ultimately, what’s important to you about travel and seeing all the places you were never able to?”
And they will answer, “Well, it’s just what we’ve always dreamed of doing. We’ve always wanted the freedom to just go to all the places like Tahiti and Australia.”
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“Awesome. That’s an awesome dream, isn’t it? Wow, thank you so much for sharing that with me! That helps me so much to be able to get you what you want.”
And now you feed their values back to them while you de- scribe what you can do for them so that all they see, hear, and feel is that you are giving them exactly what they want—in this case downsizing their home to have three benefits:
1.A nice smaller place and a more secure retirement.
2.The ability to travel and see all the places they were never able to.
3.The freedom to just go to places like Tahiti and Aus- tralia.
(Describing this process is always a bit limiting. In reality it’s an amazing thing to get this information from prospects and then watch their faces absolutely beam as you feed it back to them tied into what you are selling. It really is an amazing experience.)
There’s a couple of points here that I want to make before we go further. First, it is critical that you allow the prospects to say (or write) what is important to them. If they don’t express it, it’s not anywhere near as powerful! Do not guess.
Second, it is just as critical that you repeat what they’ve said exactly—no interpretations or active listening. None! Get creative here and you’ll be disappointed. Repeat their words back accurately and you create magic.
So to use this in your presentation you would frame your presentation around the values they have given you:
“Now, one of the things that I have had some experience in is helping people downsize to a nice smaller place. And that sounds like something that would be critical for you so you could travel and see all the places you were never able to. And I bet you’d love to feel the freedom a new, nice smaller place would bring to go to places like Tahiti and Australia. How does that sound?”
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Repeat this criteria elicitation for 20 to 25 of your cus- tomers and you have a database diamond mine of the deep values of your market. More important, you have the words to use that will strike deep into their thirst and compel them to do business with you!
Other ideal places to gather this critical information would be at trade shows, at malls, with an online blog, and the like.
Look for the words and values that are repeated across the people you have interviewed. Those are the values and words to concentrate on in your marketing letters and pitches. You also want to include as many of their values and words as you can to expand the net as wide as possible.
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