Understanding the Importance of Decision Triggers In Selling to Your Prospects

Posted on 03/12/2024 by Fluid Power Journal in E-newsletter, Professional Development 0 Comments

By Jill J. Johnson, MBA

A key component of effective target marketing involves developing deep insight into the decision-making process influencing how your customers make their purchasing choices. For organizations working with diverse customer needs, moving your prospects from, “I’m interested,” to “I’ll buy,” is a highly complex process. What is significant and how this will impact each of your prospects in their buying decision can vary. This buying decision might involve a need to consolidate their vendor list enabling you to become their sole source or among their most trusted resource providers. Their decision may also impact how they view the value of buying additional services or other resources you offer.

Understanding how your target market makes decisions is fundamental to more effectively promoting your products and services. It is essential for you to understand your prospect’s decision-making process and what triggers their buying decisions to more quickly move your sales to a “yes.” Insight into what triggers your prospects in their decision-making process allows you to adapt your messages to highlight the unique characteristics of concern to your customers. Adapt your sales approach to their needs rather than using a “cookie cutter” approach. By tailoring your promotional strategies, you can enhance your opportunities to win the sale or deepen your relationship with your potential customer. You can use this insight to carefully craft your sales approach to meet their unique needs and concerns.

Each Prospect Has Unique Decision Triggers

Knowing what will move your prospects forward in a sale is just as important as knowing what is holding them back from saying “yes.” Decision Triggers can range from stress about the costs of your product or service and not understanding the value-add you offer, to believing they need support for the decision from a trusted member of their leadership team. In your sales approach, you need to utilize probing questions to isolate how they will make their decision about investing in buying a product or service from you. You must also uncover and understand the motives of who else is involved in making the decision.

Do the work to understand what Decision Triggers are at play with your prospective customers and with the other key stakeholders they rely on for support. Knowing how to activate or neutralize these triggers will provide you with vital insight on how to adjust your sales messaging tactics. Once you understand their Decision Triggers, you can determine what you should provide your prospect so they can move forward with their decision to buy from you.

Navigate the Decision Continuum

As you move your prospective customers through their Decision Continuum, consider what your goals are each step of the way. If they reach out to you via your website or email, your goal is to get them to talk with you in person. If they ask you for information, determine what information they really need and what you can follow-up with if the sale is going to take longer than one interaction. Your goal is to keep them engaged with you and moving forward toward completing the sale and getting them to join your customer ranks—both now and long-term.

Understanding how to navigate a prospect along their Decision Continuum requires you to probe them carefully about what is important to them and their key stakeholders. In this process, you are identifying what their critical Decision Triggers are while gaining an understanding of how you need to incorporate this insight into your sales approach.

All too often when a company or organization has been around a long time, the manner in which sales are made to prospects becomes somewhat stagnant. Use decision insight to make sure your messaging is fresh, unique, and clearly matched to the evolving needs of your prospect. It might be time to reassess and revise your messaging to ensure you are hitting the hot buttons of your prospects and matching your approach to what they are most concerned about. This approach will get them to buy and stay with you beyond the initial sale.

Decision Triggers Drive Sales and Promotional Strategy

Listen carefully to the words your prospective customers use and how they describe their needs and concerns. This insight can help you shape your sales messaging back to them in ways that mirror their words. As you match your sales messaging to where they are on their Decision Continuum, you will have a better understanding of how to highlight key product or service features or benefits. This approach leverages the Decision Triggers to your target market to match what matters most to them. By specifically tailoring your messages to your prospect’s Decision Triggers, you can significantly increase the potential for achieving the sale. What you offer only matters if it matters to your prospective customers.

Once you understand the Decision Triggers driving your sales prospects, then you can tie it to the rest of your promotional strategy. You can incorporate your deep customer insight into all of your collateral materials, advertising, public relations stories, video clips, website and social media. These communications messages can reinforce how you want your prospective customers to respond to your sales messages. If there is a disconnect anywhere in the Decision Continuum, you are at risk of not being able to achieve the sales success you desire.

Final Thoughts

By incorporating insight about your prospective customer’s Decision Triggers, you can help your prospect gain confidence that the product or service you are trying to sell to them will truly benefit them and make a difference in their lives or businesses. They will have more confidence in buying from you because you will have tied your presentation to their concerns. As a result, your prospective customers can be reassured your products or services can and will effectively meet their needs. Leveraging your prospect’s Decision Triggers will make your sales cycle more efficient. It will result in more sales, help you build superior customer relationships, and will boost customer satisfaction when you deliver on what you promised.

About the Author:

Jill J. Johnson, MBA, President and Founder of Johnson Consulting Services, is a management consultant, accomplished speaker, award-winning author, and Business Hall of Fame inductee. She helps clients make critical business decisions and develop plans for turnarounds or growth. Her consulting work has impacted over $4 billion worth of decisions. She has a proven track record of dealing with complex business issues and getting results. For more information, visit www.jcs-usa.com.