Joey Coleman is a customer experience expert and the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Never Lose a Customer Again: Turn Any Sale into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days.
In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Joey explains how we can take new customers and turn them into life-long advocates which substantially increases your chances of smashing quota.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- JoeyColeman.com
- Book: Never Lose a Customer Again: Turn Any Sale into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days
- Book: Duct Tape Selling: Think Like a Marketer – Sell Like a Superstar
- Architectural Digest
- Yoko.co – Web design, hosting, and development platform
Transcript
Will Barron:
Coming up on today’s episode of The Salesman Podcast…
Joey Coleman:
Buyer’s remorse is an interesting phrase. It’s something that most of us have either learned about in school or heard about or read in a business book, but a lot of folks don’t really talk about it. And what I think is fascinating is that so many people have heard of buyer’s remorse, but very few, if any, businesses have a system and a process designed to address buyer’s remorse.
Will Barron:
Hello, SalesNation. I’m Will Barron, host of The Salesman Podcast, the world’s most listen to B2B sales show. If you haven’t already, make sure to click Subscribe. And with that, let’s meet today’s guest.
Joey Coleman:
Hi, I’m Joey Coleman, and I teach companies how to keep their customers. You can find me at joeycoleman.com.
What is Buyer’s Remorse? · [01:08]
Will Barron:
On this episode of the show with the legend that is Joey, we’re diving into how we can eliminate or strategically reduce buyer’s remorse; the psychology behind it, whether it’s emotion, whether it’s logic, the fact that we all face it and a whole lot more, there’s a tonne of value in this episode for everyone that’s listening to SalesNation. And so with that, let’s jump right into it. If the opposite of a good experience is buyer’s remorse, what would buyer’s remorse be defined as?
“What I think is fascinating is that so many people have heard of buyer’s remorse, but very few, if any, businesses have a system and a process designed to address buyer’s remorse.” – Joey Coleman · [01:31]
Joey Coleman:
Yeah. I think buyer’s remorse is an interesting phrase. It’s something that most of us have either learned about in school or heard about or read in a business book, but a lot of folks don’t really talk about it. And what I think is fascinating is that so many people have heard of buyer’s remorse, but very few, if any, businesses have a system and a process designed to address buyer’s remorse. So to answer your question, here’s what buyer’s remorse is: buyer’s remorse is a scientific phenomenon that is created any time a purchase is made. So when a purchase is made, the brain floods with dopamine. We feel joy, euphoria, excitement. “This is the product that’s going to be the answer to my dreams, this is the service that’s going to help me solve my problems, make my life better,” whatever it may be.
Joey Coleman:
But almost as quickly as that dopamine floods our brain, a clock starts ticking and it ticks faster and faster. And as that dopamine recedes from the brain, those feelings of joy, euphoria and excitement are replaced by feelings of fear and doubt and uncertainty. “What if this product isn’t all that it was cracked up to be? What if something goes wrong, will I be able to get my money back? What if I signed up for this service and it’s a multi-month commitment, and a month into it, I realised that it’s not for me? Will I be able to get out of the contract? In a B2B setting, what if I buy something and my boss gets upset about it, and I end up getting fired because of the purchase decision that I signed off on?”
“Research shows that buyer’s remorse happens with every single purchase. Now, the degree of buyer’s remorse increases based on the volume of the purchase or the significance of the purchase. But the fact that everybody’s feeling this and most salespeople aren’t addressing it creates a real problem in the emotional journey for the new customer.” – Joey Coleman · [02:59]
Joey Coleman:
These feelings create a delta between the salesperson, who’s high fiving and celebrating that they just landed the new client, and the new client, who’s in this state of, “Wow, I wonder if this is going to work out,” or maybe even stronger in a state of, “Yeah, I shouldn’t have done that.” And the problem is we slip into this buyer’s remorse and all the research shows that buyer’s remorse happens with every single purchase. Now, the degree of buyer’s remorse increases based on the volume of the purchase or the significance of the purchase, but the fact that everybody’s feeling this and most salespeople aren’t addressing it creates a real problem in the emotional journey for the new customer.
Is Buyer’s Remorse a Human Conditioning Aspect of Our Lives? · [03:20]
Will Barron:
I never really thought about this before, but is this related to money or is this a human experience we all have? Because without coming up with some really crude, me being 19 and going out drunk and trying to pull the opposite sex, there’s some examples there of remorse. And without using that kind of example and going down that pathway, it seems like this is applicable in other areas of life as well.
Joey Coleman:
Oh, absolutely. It’s not a money thing, it’s a human condition thing. If you look at the amount of money spent, that increases the severity of the buyer’s remorse. So the place where we see buyer’s remorse talked about the most are in the two biggest purchases a human being will ever make: their home and their car. And the one that gets talked about the most is the car. Usually, and people who are listening may have had this experience, where you search around, you try to figure out what kind of car you want to buy, or what kind of vehicle want to buy, you buy it, you drive off the lot, and on the way home, it feels like everyone is driving the same car you’re driving. Suddenly you’re seeing your car going by left and right. Now, science tells us that that’s a recency effect, right? It’s once you’ve bought in.
Will Barron:
Yeah.
Joey Coleman:
But a piece of that hinges with buyer’s remorse too. And then you start to say, “Maybe I’m not as special as I thought. I wonder if that person got the same deal I did. Should I have shopped even more? Maybe I should have gone with the other colour, because this colour is really prevalent, and I won’t stand out as much as I would’ve thought.” And so what ends up happening is we feel these feelings about the purchase that, for most people, it’s a subconscious feeling. They don’t even fully acknowledge it, but it’s real and it’s definitely there.
Is Your Customer Experiencing Buyer’s Remorse? Here’s How You Address It · [05:02]
Will Barron:
How much of resolving this comes down to things that we can control in that user onboarding and processes and things like that versus only selling to people who aren’t completely psychologically broken or doing 15 sessions of psychoanalysis before we agree to work with them?
Joey Coleman:
Sure. I’m a believer that I would rather address it than try to narrow the niche of people who wouldn’t actually experience buyer’s remorse, because pretty quickly you have to get outside of selling to human beings; which I haven’t figured out yet, but if anybody who’s listening has figured that out, please reach out and let me know.
Joey Coleman:
Now, I think that the reality here is everyone’s going to experience buyer’s remorse. The question becomes, what can we, as salespeople, do to affirmatively address it? I believe there are eight phases of the customer journey. And one of those phases right after purchase is the affirm phase. What are you doing as a salesperson, or as a business, or an account manager in the onboarding process to actually say, “Look, I know you might be feeling unsure about your decision. Here’s why you made the right choice.” And addressing the elephant in the room, taking it head-on and taking the type of actions and the type of steps and having the type of communications right after the sale that reaffirm the person’s decision to do business with you.
The Things Salespeople Can do Before the Sale to Mitigate Any Buyer’s Remorse That Might Come After a Purchase · [06:30]
Will Barron:
I want to get onto that side of things in a second. And I don’t know if there is a solution to this side of the question, but if there’s multiple steps in the buyer’s journey and we all have our own sales cycles and processes as well, which, whether we like or not, do factor into things and the way we go about doing business, is there anything that we can do before the sale to mitigate any buyer’s remorse that perhaps comes after the fact?
Joey Coleman:
Absolutely. I don’t believe you can eliminate it, but you certainly can mitigate it; to or point, which I think that one of the main ways to do that is to actually address it before it happens. To say, “Here is the deal: what we’ve found is we’ve sold…” Let’s pick an item. “We’ve sold model toy cars,” like the one that’s sitting on your desk, “to hundreds of customers before. And what we’ve found is when they get it and they get it home, they love the way it looks, but they begin to say, ‘Did I spend too much money on this? If I would’ve searched around on the internet a little bit longer, might I have found a cheaper version? Could I have saved myself a few bucks? A few quid,'” whatever it may be.
Joey Coleman:
“Here is the thing: if you have those feelings, you’re normal. This is totally natural. We know this is going to happen, but here’s what we want you to remember: on those other sites that you might have been able to buy the toy model car, you don’t know how much time and effort went into it. For our model cars, we spent 150 hours in design and 28 hours in assembly to make sure every everyone is perfectly detailed. We use lasers to machine engineer and die cut the metal to make sure that the fit is perfect. Everything is exactly a 1/18th replica scale, including the size of the rear view mirror on our car.”
“You can call out buyer’s remorse while you’re in the sales process, which could also be seen as detailing more benefits and features of your product. But by addressing it in the context of buyer’s remorse, you’re seeding that conversation so that when they get home, if they do have those doubts, they get flashbacks to the conversation they had with you, where you’re like, “Yeah, it’s natural. It’s okay for you to have these doubts, but here’s why you shouldn’t worry.” – Joey Coleman · [08:26]
Joey Coleman:
And so you call out the things that set your product apart and let them know that their investment in your product is commensurate with your investment in the creation of the product. That makes them feel better about it. And so you can call that out while you’re in the sales process, which could also be seen as detailing more benefits and features of your product, but by addressing it in the context of buyer’s remorse, you’re seeding that conversation so that when to get the car home and they take it out of the box, if they do have those doubts, they flash back to the conversation they had with you, where you’re like, “Yeah, it’s natural. It’s okay for you to have these doubts, but here’s why you shouldn’t worry.”
Will Barron:
We can use the example of the car in reality. It’s a Nissan GTR. I’ve not bought it for numerous reasons, one of which is I’m going to have to redo my driveway to fit into a car on. So there’s multiple elements to all of this. It’s not just buying the car and enjoying it.
Joey Coleman:
Sure.
How to Address Buyer’s Remorse Before a Purchase Without Planting Seeds of Doubt in the Buyer · [09:35]
Will Barron:
Plus the fact, I’m never going to use it. I already drive a fast BMW. I’m one of those idiots in a bright, red, fast BMW. So it’s just a toy. So there’s multiple things holding me back. It’s not the financial side of things anymore that’s stopping me buying it. With all that said, and again, we can continue down this analogy if we like, if that makes it more real for me and maybe the audience as well; SalesNation, Joey, do we address it in how you just defined it then of, “We see our customers X, Y, Z,” or do we go about in almost a discovery question process of, “What are you worried about after the purchase?” Is it best to address it of, “We find this,” rather than… Because I feel like we could almost be planting seeds of doubt in the person’s mind before we’ve even done the deal, right?
Joey Coleman:
Absolutely. At the end of the day, it’s a double-edged sword, right?
Will Barron:
Yeah.
“I don’t necessarily believe you have to address buyer’s remorse before the sale. I think you can, but I think you definitely want to be ready to address it after the sale.” – Joey Coleman · [10:12]
Joey Coleman:
That’s why I like to use the language, “We find that with some of our customers, or many of our customers, after the purchase, X, Y, Z happens; they have these doubts, they have these feelings.” I don’t necessarily believe you have to address buyer’s remorse before the sale. I think you can, but I think you definitely want to be ready to address it after the sale.
“If you’ve been in business for a while, you know that the majority of people that buy your product have these doubts. I think addressing them front on and head-on before the sale is in your best interest.” – Joey Coleman · [10:26]
Joey Coleman:
I agree with you that it could be seen as planting some doubts in the conversation, but if you’ve been in business for a while, you know that the majority of people that buy your product have these doubts, I think addressing them front on and head-on before the sale is in your best interest to be able to come at it.
“I think when we consider buyers as our audience, we’re called to perform, we’re called to put our best foot forward, to give a performance, to create an experience for them, as opposed to the words like customer, or client, or patient, or user that are more commonly used in different industries.” – Joey Coleman · [10:52]
Joey Coleman:
Where I think the… I’m all about audience or customer or prospect inquiry. I think of customers as audience members. And it’s not just because I’m a professional speaker, but I think when we consider them our audience, we’re called to perform, we’re called to put our best foot forward, to give a performance, to create an experience for them, as opposed to the words like customer, or client, or patient, or user that are more commonly used in different industries. I think where this gets interesting is if we’re thinking of them as our audience and we ask our audience to imagine the things they are going to feel once they own a product that they’ve never owned, we’re asking them to step into their minds and conjure up things that are going to be very difficult for the average purchaser to do.
Joey Coleman:
And so I think while inquiry is a very useful tool at every phase in the relationship, having a specific inquiry around, “What are some of the things that you’re going to feel bad about after the purchase?” It’s asking them to imagine things that are going to be really difficult for them. That’s why I like to use the, “What we found was some of our other customers is X, Y, Z.” What then they end up doing is saying either, “Yeah, that sounds like me,” and they feel affirmed and taken care of, or they say, “Yeah, I’ll never be like that.” And then guess what? You just keep on trucking. You don’t have to worry about it. So either way your bases are covered.
Addressing Possible Buyer’s Remorse by Previewing User Experience for Your Product or Service · [12:11]
Will Barron:
Got it. That makes a lot of sense. And I just wanted to clarify that for myself and the audience. And with that, I guess we go then a step further, perhaps, of then we’re telling a story, we’re telling a narrative. So we are not just dwelling on the fact that… And tell me if I’m right or wrong here, if I’m getting ahead of myself, where it seems like we can say, “Our customers or users,” or whoever, “find this, this and this, but four weeks later, they find this and the problems are solved and the world’s a better place for them.”
“I think so many salespeople spend their time focused on the features of their product or service. And then your more enlightened salespeople spend a lot of time focused on the benefits of your product or service. I think the top salespeople in the world are actually previewing the feeling and the experience of using your product or service.” – Joey Coleman · [12:49]
Joey Coleman:
Exactly. So what I think is really valuable in the sales process is to preview the experience of using your brand. I think so many salespeople spend their time focused on the features of their product or service. And then your more enlightened salespeople spend a lot of time focused on the benefits of your product or service. I think the top salespeople in the world are actually previewing the feeling and the experience of using your product or service. And this us to do that. It allows us, “Surely we need to touch on the features and the benefits,” but when we can tell the customer, “Look by using our product, here’s what you’re going to feel at the one-month mark, the two-month mark, the four-month mark. After a year of using our product, you’ll be able to look back on right now and say, “Wow, look how far I’ve come, how much weight I’ve lost, how much money I’ve saved, how much better-looking I am, how much more organised.”
Joey Coleman:
Fill in the blank of whatever it is that you’re selling. I think what that does is it allows us to anchor the sales process to experiences and feelings, which at the end of the day, are a much more compelling element of any sales process than features and benefits.
The Power of Foreshadowing in Handling Buyer’s Remorse · [14:10]
Will Barron:
What does it mean to… And we’ve touched on… I don’t know if you want to go down this route, but we’ve touched on NLP and things and suggestibility, we’ve admitted it on the show in the past, so some of the audience may be somewhat familiar with the word anchor or anchoring, and I don’t know if you were going to going down that path with this, but what does it mean to anchor a thought or a feeling to an event or a person?
Joey Coleman:
I think what’s interesting about NLP is there’s some people that are very pro-NLP and some people that are very anti-NLP, because it feels manipulative. Here is the thing: at the end of the day, words are words and persuasion is persuasion. And the way we use words to persuade can either be used for good or can be used for evil. This is, “Welcome to life. This is how things work.”
“Anything we can do to foreshadow what is going to happen after the person owns your product or service, after they’ve made that purchase or investment, will help them to have a better idea, a better picture of a future that it’s very difficult for them to imagine.” – Joey Coleman · [14:54]
Joey Coleman:
I think what’s interesting about whether you want to call it anchoring, or setting expectations, or previewing what the experience is going to be like, anything we can do to foreshadow what is going to happen after the person owns your product or service, after they’ve made that purchase or investment, will help them to have a better idea, a better picture of a future that it’s very difficult for them to imagine. For example, there’s a globally-published magazine called Architectural Digest. And every year, there is one issue of Architectural Digest that outsells all the other issues of that year.
Will Barron:
Is it The Bikini Edition?
“The average human being struggles to envision the future. They can see the present, they can see the past, they really struggle to see the future. And what a before and after picture allows someone to do is think of the present photo, and that after photo as the future. That’s why I think that salespeople have an opportunity, and I would dare say maybe even a responsibility, to preview the future for their customers that their customers aren’t going to be able to envision on their own.” – Joey Coleman · [15:47]
Joey Coleman:
It is not The Bikini Edition. That’s a different magazine. No, it is the Before and After edition, where on the front cover and throughout the magazine, they show pictures of what the room looked like before and what it looked like after. Here’s why that issue outsells every other issue: the average human being struggles to envision the future. They can see the present, they can see the past. They really struggle to see the future. And what a before and after picture allows someone to do is think of the present photo, that after photo, as the future. It allows them to step back in time and look at the before photo and think of that as the present and envision what it could be, and it builds that muscle, builds that capability.
Joey Coleman:
There are a handful of folks that are really good at this: designers, lots of times people who work in fashion or in the arts are very good… science fiction writers, at doing this type of envisioning, but the average human being is not good at this. That’s why I think that salespeople have an opportunity, and I would dare say maybe even a responsibility, to preview the future for their customers that their customers aren’t going to be able to envision on their own.
Will Barron:
You’ve just said two things there, which are top of mind for me at the moment, which is hilarious as all this gets pulled together. So I never really heard or contemplated or thought about the word foreshadowing before, until I’m doing… Essentially, I’m get mentoring from a couple of world-class teachers and speakers essentially on how to teach. So I think this is a skill that’s useful for salespeople. Obviously, as we’ll get into the rest of this conversation, Joey, but for me personally, on our new sales training platform or version two of it, I’m doubling down and not just trying to throw content at people, I’m trying to structure it so that I can teach and so it sticks. I don’t think it’s good enough just to give people the facts, I want to enable them to consume it and learn in the different pathways that people learn. All that kind of stuff, which hopefully goes in the subconscious and people are unconsciously thinking about.
Will Barron:
You mentioned science fiction. The example that one of my mentors gave me was George R.R. Martin, and how he does for shattering in A Game of Thrones, which is a… I’ve never read the books, but the TV series.
Joey Coleman:
Sure.
Will Barron:
I was like, “Oh, that makes sense because every series something happens two series before. We don’t realise at the time, but again, there’s seeds being planted that then when you come round, there’s a big reward, there’s a big almost dopamine or serotonin spike of, ‘I kind of saw what was going on. I was in the inner circle. I was in the secret side of the conversation that perhaps other people weren’t.'” And obviously, you kind of get viewpoints from characters to double down on this. And it happens all the time in science fiction and that side of the writing world.
How to Practically Use Foreshadowing in Sales to Address Potential Buyer’s Remorse · [18:19]
Will Barron:
With that said, and this being something, again, top of mind for me, something I’m trying to instil into the content that we’re producing in the sales school, how do we use foreshadowing within the world of storytelling in sales? How does it practically look if we’re selling a piece of software, or my background, I’m selling a medical device? How do I do this in the real world for all my conversations to reduce buyer’s remorse? That’s a long-winded question, and hopefully it makes sense.
“Why do we do demos? The reason we do demos is to show the person what the screens are going to look like, show them how easy it is to click through the screens, show them what they’ll be able to accomplish. Now, the best software demos, by the time the demo is done, you’re envisioning your content in the demo. You’re envisioning how this will make your life easier.” – Joey Coleman · [19:13]
Joey Coleman:
Yeah. No, it does. And I think it’s an excellent question. I think there are many, many ways we can do this. For example, let’s take this off. We can jump to a couple of different examples, but I find sometimes talking in the context of a specific example helps to illustrate the point better. Let’s look at software. When we sell software, what has increasingly become the norm is to have a demo of the software. Why do we do demos? The reason we do demos is to show the person what the screens are going to look like, show them how easy it is to click through the screens, show them what they’ll be able to accomplish. Now, the best software demos, by the time the demo is done, you’re envisioning your content in the demo. You’re envisioning how this will make your life easier.
“The best companies and the best sales people, I think, are the ones that are very clear on what are the use cases that the customer in front of you is going to use and how can your demo for the use cases be in alignment with how they will use the product.” – Joey Coleman · [19:52]
Joey Coleman:
Now, some software demos that I’ve had are not at all having that goal and focus. Instead, they’re trying to show all the bells and whistles. “And look, this is what we could do to make this, and this happened.” And I’m like, “I don’t even have that in my business. I will never use that functionality.” So the best companies and the best sales people, I think, are the ones that are very clear on what are the use cases that the customer in front of you is going to use? And how can you demo for them use cases that are in alignment with how they will use the product?
“Whatever we can be doing to help make it easier for the customer to imagine themselves as a user or as an owner of the product or the service is what is going to help accelerate their purchase decision while also influencing the experience they have after.” – Joey Coleman · [20:40]
Joey Coleman:
I also think testimonials are an interesting way we can do this. When you see a testimonial or hear a testimonial from someone who is similarly situated to you, they also are a small business owner with three employees operating in X, Y, Z industry, it allows you to say, “Huh, if it worked for that person, it might work for me as well.” And when they speak specifically about the benefits that they had from implementing the software, it allows us to imagine ourselves in their shoes. Again, this goes back to that before and after. Whatever we can be doing to help make it easier for the customer to imagine themselves as a user or as an owner of the product or the service is what is going to help accelerate their purchase decision while also influencing the experience they have after.
“There’s some fascinating research around the fact that if we have envisioned a successful outcome before we’ve actually even made the purchase, the likelihood of us having a successful outcome is better just because we’ve imagined it in our minds.” – Joey Coleman · [20:58]
Joey Coleman:
There’s some fascinating research around the fact that if we have envisioned a successful outcome before we’ve actually even made the purchase, the likelihood of us having a successful outcome is better just because we’ve imagined it in our mind. Now, pro athletes use this all the time. They envision the victory, they envision taking the winning shot or hitting the winning goal, whatever it may be, before they’ve even played the game. And then when it happens, everybody says, “Oh, how did that happen?” And it was like, “I saw it happening, and then I went out and made it happen.”
Buyer’s Remorse is, in a Sense, Related to the Amount of Time Before a Buyer Can Experience Success with Your Product or Service · [21:37]
Will Barron:
For the analytical people listening, myself included, is there a formula for remorse? And just as I’m pondering it here, it seems like the length of time before we see the initial success, it needs to be a part of that in that if I get a demo and you use a software, and within an hour I’ve had success, then the barrier to entry of getting that remorse is obviously lower. If I need to use it for two years before it can start giving me machine learning and data and the algorithm spits out ways I can improve at whatever I’m trying to do, then obviously there’s longer payer to buyer’s remorse. It seems like a formula could almost be length of time before success over the amount of trust or something like that. Clearly it’s difficult to measure any of this. But is there anything else that would have to go in that formula to make it work?
“A sale isn’t a sale until the client gets a result. So salespeople shouldn’t be high-fiving themselves that the sale is completed until the client gets the result that they were hoping to accomplish when they signed up for your service or bought your product.” – Joey Coleman · [22:55]
Joey Coleman:
Sure. As the guy who any of my math teachers throughout my career will tell you was not particularly adept at math, I’m somewhat low to get into any conversations of formulas. However, what I will say is, I agree with you. There’s a couple things at play here. Number one, there’s your time until success. My good buddy, John Jantsch, who’s an amazing business author who wrote the book Duct Tape Marketing, Duct Tape Sales, has a great quote in his book, Duct Tape Sales, where he says, “A sale isn’t a sale until the client gets a result.” So salespeople shouldn’t be high-fiving themselves that the sale is completed until the client gets the result that they were hoping to accomplish when they signed up for your service or bought your product.
Joey Coleman:
Lots of times as salespeople, we don’t think about that. We just think about, “Oh, the sale is the sale once I get the money. Once I hand over the product or the service and I have the money, we’re done.” No, that’s the beginning. So you’re right, the time to them getting success is a factor. The amount of money spent is a factor. When we go in to the store and we’re checking out at the cash register and there’s a little tin of breath mints, when we buy those breath mints for a couple of dollars and we pop one in our mouth and our breath feels fresher. The time period to achieving the goal is very short, the amount of money spent achieving the goal is very small, and so the buyer’s remorse is commensurately low. So again, it factors into your product and how this works.
Joey Coleman:
Another piece of this is how easy is it to get up and running? So ease of use, or ease of adoption, or ease of onboarding is a component as well, because if I can get you a result very quickly but you have to give me 48 hours of your focused attention before we can get that, booking 48 straight hours into my calendar, it’s going to take about two years to find that time, right?
Will Barron:
Yeah.
“The biggest area of buyer’s remorse that most people overlook is the gap between the time the payment is made and the product or service arrives. So, if we can deliver our product or service faster, we can address the concerns faster.” – Joey Coleman · [24:47]
Joey Coleman:
So all these things are contributing to the overall experience, and that’s why it really ends up being a case-by-case basis. But I think even just, for folks in the SalesNation listening, even just to think about, how long is it before my customer gets a result, and what am I doing during that time to make their experience great? I will tell you the biggest area of buyer’s remorse that most people overlook is the gap between the time the payment is made and the product or service arrives. For example, you go on to Amazon, and you buy a product, and you hit Purchase. The second I hit Purchase and it goes through my card, my brain floods with dopamine. “This is going to be awesome. I’m excited,” but I don’t have the product.
Joey Coleman:
Now, as a prime member, I’m going to have that product in two days. But those two days are a period where I’m going to be doubting the decision I just made. So if we can deliver our product or service faster, if we can address the concerns faster… that’s why Amazon implemented, when you make a purchase on Amazon, they send you the confirmation email. And then you’ll get the text message that says, “Your package is shipped. And here’s the tracking number so you can follow along and see where it is in the process. And here’s the text message saying it’s been delivered.”
Joey Coleman:
I have been in my home and received a text message telling me that the UPS driver has dropped the package upstairs at my front door. And I’ve gotten the little dopamine hit of the package is here and found myself stopping what I’m doing and running upstairs to get the package. That’s a company that is thinking very clearly about, “How quickly can we get the product into the customer’s hands, get it open, get it unboxed and getting them using?” This is why unboxing videos have become so popular, because unboxing videos address this gap in the human condition of, “What’s it going to look like and feel like when I open the package?”
Closing the Gap Between Payment and Delivery By Constantly Communicating Can Adress Buyer’s Concerns · [26:33]
Will Barron:
You said something here, and I guess… We’ll wrap up the show with this. And you’ve kind of answered my question already, but should salespeople… And this isn’t binary. The answer is going to be, “It depends.” But should salespeople, to narrow that gap perhaps from invoice being paid or even quote being raised or whatever it is, should they perhaps create a little bit of content that can then be dripped out to fill that gap, that void? Because it could be as simple as, if it’s a software product, a quick FAQ of… Again, from the individual, it’s going to add more value than just a generic corporate thing, but I’ve found my customer is this, this and this, or the biggest hurdle is this, or implementing this, IT might have to get involved for 1, 2, 3. I feel like a little bit of content, maybe just two emails or three videos could go a long way to resolving some of these issues.
“If there is a gap between when the payment is made or the contract is signed and when the customer gets their hands on the product or the service, we should be filling that gap with some communication.” – Joey Coleman · [27:23]
Joey Coleman:
Absolutely. And I’ll go even further than saying that it depends. Yes, 100%. There should be communication. If there is a gap between when the payment is made or the contract is signed and when the customer gets their hands on the product or the service, we should be filling that gap with some communication. Now, let me be clear. That should not be communicating every five seconds. “You still don’t have it, but don’t worry, it’s coming. Hey, guess what? I know we haven’t shipped it yet, but don’t worry it’s going to be there pretty soon. Hey, guess what? We shipped it and it’s going to be…” You don’t want to overwhelm them with communication. However, you want them to know that progress is being made towards accomplishing the goal.
Joey Coleman:
Quick story, some incredible research done out of Stanford University here in the United States. There’s a saying that people don’t want to see how the sausage is made. That saying, while maybe true for sausage, is untrue in every other area of the world. And the way they found this is they did some research with travel sites. You know, you go on a travel site to look for an aeroplane ticket?
Will Barron:
Yup.
Joey Coleman:
They did some studies where they said, “All right, when somebody types in where they want to go and their dates and the destination and they hit Search, the machine can produce those results very quickly. The search algorithm can pop those results up very quickly. What they actually did is they slowed down the results and they started showing you airline by airline and filling them in. And instead of having all those results pop up instantaneously, they maybe took six seconds to build the results. What they found is that more people purchased when they saw the machine working than when the machine just delivered the answers.
Joey Coleman:
So as a parting thought for our listeners, in 2019, everybody is chasing the now; it needs to be immediate. You need to deliver everything instantaneously. I wholeheartedly disagree. I do not think that is what the average human wants. The average human wants to feel that they are being cared for individually. And in the example I just gave from the travel site, the building the results, even though the computer already knew what they were, slowing it down to make it seem like the computer was working for me; the person searching for the flight, dramatically increased the likelihood that I would make a purchase.
“If you let the buyer know what is going on between the time they make the purchase and when you actually deliver the product or service, they’re going to feel better about your product or service regardless of anything else you do, just because they’re going to feel that you care about them and that you are trying to make them part of the experience.” – Joey Coleman · [29:42]
Joey Coleman:
People do want to see the sausage being made. If you let them know what is going on between the time they make the purchase and when you actually deliver the product or service, they’re going to feel better about your product or service regardless of anything else you do, just because they’re going to feel that you care about them and that you are trying to make them part of the experience.
Will and Joey Talk About Building Anticipation From When the Purchase is Made to When the Product or Service Gets Delivered · [30:01]
Will Barron:
It’s funny you should say this. I’ve got another example which I experienced through the day, which hopefully will add an exclamation mark onto this. Come over, it’s Pizza Express, one of the pizza places… Domino’s Pizza. So my girlfriend used their app to buy us pizza. And then there’s a little face and then there’s a clock, and it says, “Your pizza’s being made, whoever. Then the pepperoni is being added,” and I’m sat there going, “Oh, bloody hell. I love their pepperoni.” And then it goes, “It’s going in the oven.” And I can feel myself salivating literally watching the stupid little screen. It’s having a physical reaction in my sodden mouth as you go through it.
Will Barron:
Then it’s, “Jerry is just putting the pizza in the van. Jerry is 10 minutes away.” And I go to, “Jesus Christ, this pizza is going to be incredible.” And then it sends up and it’s pretty good pizza and everyone’s happy, but I remember it happening. And we were sat there, because you might get an email or a text saying your pizza is out for delivery so you can listen out for the door, but we were literally… and maybe this only works once. It doesn’t work after the 50th pizza, but we were literally sat there watching… We were watching Game of Thrones at the time. Watching Game of Thrones with an eye on this… with the phone screen turned on and we’ve all got a branding, boxing-
Joey Coleman:
Watching the pizza being made.
Will Barron:
… Yeah. It was [crosstalk 00:31:15]
Joey Coleman:
Exactly, exactly. And in fact, I actually use the Domino’s example in my book, Never Lose a Customer Again, because that app is so brilliantly designed. What I love about it, and you just asked, I don’t know if this works as well on the 50th time. Guess what? It doesn’t need to work as well on the 50th time. It needs to work the first few times to get you to see it.
Will Barron:
That makes total sense.
Joey Coleman:
That’s it. Because once you’re bought into, “Oh, it’s taken care of,” if you start to have that doubt and, “I wonder where the pizza is. It seemed like we ordered…” Domino’s, it used to be a half-hour delivery or your pizza is free. That used to be their marketing campaign. And a lot of people, they did so much marketing around that, that a lot of people still have that belief, even though that’s not the promise anymore. They usually deliver it in less than 30 minutes, but that’s not their promise. What often happens now is people will order the pizza and they’ll go, “Geez, it’s been about 28 minutes. I wonder.” And then they go on the app and they see it’s been four minutes. It hasn’t been 28 minutes. It’s been four minutes into order. Your brain is playing tricks on you. And the app gives them the chance to address that specifically.
Perception Versus Reality in Addressing Customer Anxiety After a Purchase is Confirmed · [32:20]
Will Barron:
Okay. Final one on this, and the pizza app ties it all together, of how much of this is just perception? Because, unless you tell me otherwise, there is no way that my pizza has a bar code on it and it knows that pepperoni has been added, the cheese has been added, whatever it is. Clearly, it knows when the order starts and it was 10 minutes later that it’s probably in the oven, and I know it’s 15 minutes later. Maybe there is a notification of when it goes into the van or whatever it is. So the half-lie in half telling a tale, they’re telling a story and it’s probably about right, even though I’m getting super excited thinking that buried down at the local pizza place is literally putting the pepperoni on right now. Second, probably isn’t. So how about all of this is perception? This is the hard reality of things.
Joey Coleman:
Yeah. We could do an entire episode on a discussion of perception versus reality. I believe that when it comes to customers, especially your first time that you’re doing business with them, the perception is the reality because they have no context for what reality is. So whatever perceptions you want to create for them.
Joey Coleman:
Now, let me be abundantly clear, all you folks in SalesNation, I am not encouraging you to create fiction for your customers. I am not encouraging you to lie to your customers or pretend to your to customers. That is not at all what we are advocating here. However, it is worth considering where are aspects of your business where you can give the customer some insight?
Joey Coleman:
Let me give you another example. I fly a lot. I’m on aeroplanes about two and a half weeks out of every month. It’s the perils of being a professional speaker, travelling around doing workshops and keynotes. I fly exclusively Delta Airlines. Delta Airlines has an app that has a specific function that is very valuable to me. And it is the Track Your Bags app. Now, normally when I’m flying for work, I don’t check the bag, but when I’m flying with my family, I’ve got a five-year-old, I’ve got a three-year-old, we’re packing a lot of stuff. I wish we were packing less, but nonetheless, we’re packing a lot of stuff.
Joey Coleman:
They have a thing where when your bag is assigned the number, when they put the tag on, the app activates, when the agent scans it at check-in, it activates and says, “Your back has been checked in.” Then when my bag hits the tarmac and is about to be loaded into the plane, it gets scanned again, and I get a message saying, “Your bag is being loaded onto the plane.” When the bag gets to the top of the conveyor belt and is loaded into the plane, it gets hit again, “Your bag has been loaded onto the plane.” When the plane lands and the bag comes out of the plane, it is scanned again, “Your bag has come off the plane.” And then when it crosses on to the baggage claim, it says, “Your bag is now arriving at turnstile three,” whatever it may be.
Joey Coleman:
What they did, Delta realised that not knowing where your bag was was creating angst in their customers. And by giving them a play-by-play report of where the bag was, they decreased that angst just a little. Now, did it apply to every customer? No, not everybody checks bags. Does everybody care about it as much as I do? No, not at all. But there have been times where, with my family, I’ve been racing to make a plane wondering, “Will my bag make the flight to sit on the plane?” And what it used to be is I would have spent that entire two-hour plane ride wondering, “Gosh, I wonder when I get to baggage claim, if it’s going to be there or not.” That is dispelled. That is gone, because I’ll be sitting on the plane and all of a sudden it will be like, “Your bag’s just been loaded onto the plane.” I’m like, “Oh, fantastic. I can sit back and enjoy. I’m not going to need to buy new clothes when we land.”
“I think everybody in SalesNation can look at your sales process and say, “Are there places where giving updates to our customers about where we are in the process would help reduce little moments of angst or fear that they might have.” – Joey Coleman · [36:17]
Joey Coleman:
So here’s the thing, I think everybody in SalesNation can look at your sales process and say, “Are there places where giving updates to our customers about where we are in the process would help reduce little moments of angst or fear that they might have?” Definitely worth exploring.
Will Barron:
Love it. And it could be, to make a real example for B2B, it could be when someone pays an invoice, just ringing them up and saying, “We’ve got your payments,” right?
Joey Coleman:
We got your money.
Will Barron:
Yeah.
Joey Coleman:
Exactly. Something as simple as that. Hey, letting them know it went through, letting you know that you got… Or even just saying… My son’s school, there’s a monthly fee to attend the school and it’s all paid online. But on the second to last day of the month, I always get a little email that says, “Hey, by the way, the invoice for next month is in your online portal account.” It’s simple, it’s simple reminder that triggers in me, “Oh yeah, I got to pay that.”
“What I’d encourage folks to do is think outside the context of payment, because payment is interesting to you, but it’s a pain point for your customer. What are the things that you could give notices about that have nothing to do with payment, but instead are about things they’re excited about?” – Joey Coleman · [37:20]
Joey Coleman:
So it’s just these little nudges, these little reminders can be really valuable. But what I’d encourage folks to do is think outside the context of payment, because payment is interesting to you, but it’s a pain point for your customer. What are the things that you could give notices about that have nothing to do with payment, but instead are about things they’re excited about? For example, last one, my hosting company that I worked with, Yoko Co. These guys are fantastic. Every month they send me an update on my hosting. Now, I don’t know who you host your website with, but I’ve hosted with dozens of different providers over the year, and none of them have sent me a monthly update.
Joey Coleman:
What I love about this update is it says, “Here are all the things we did behind the scenes to keep your site up and running and clean. We did this update, we did this instal, we actually deinstalled this thing that used to be on there because we heard there was a security issue with it.” And they list these things out. And I’m not kidding you, it’s usually a list of 50 or/to a hundred things that they’ve done during my monthly hosting. It makes a lot easier for me to pay the check for my monthly hosting when I realise that they’re actually doing some work, as opposed to the old hosting companies I worked with, where it was just on auto bill, where after a couple of years, as the prices kept going up, I’m like, “What are you guys even doing? Yeah, my website’s up, but why is it costing you more money to keep my website up this month than it was last month? That doesn’t make sense to me.”
Joey’s Advice to His Younger Self on How to Become Better at Selling · [39:02]
Will Barron:
Love it. I love it. I appreciate all the examples in this, Joey. It’s, how do you describe it? There’s few people that come on the show and can give example after example, example, and it really helps me comprehend all of this. I’m sure it will with SalesNation as well. So just wanted to point that out. I appreciate it. And I’ve got one final question, mate, that I ask everyone that comes on the show, and that is, if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you’d give him to help him become better at selling?
Joey Coleman:
The reason I’m pausing is because this is a really interesting question, and I think a really valuable and important question. I think sales has gotten a bad rap. I think a lot of people judge sales as negative, or swarmy, or slimy or… fill in your word. And I’m a believer that sales is what makes the world go round. Nothing, nothing happens in the world without a sale. I mean, even convincing your significant other as to what you want to have for dinner, trying to persuade your child that it’s bedtime. There are sales happening all day, every day, outside of a commercial business context.
Joey Coleman:
I think the thing that I would encourage myself to do earlier in the process… I’m going to give you two instead of one, if I may.
Will Barron:
Sure.
“Knowing how to sell is as much about knowing how to present as it is knowing how to persuade.” – Joey Coleman · [40:50]
Joey Coleman:
Number one, start getting experience in sales even sooner. So get a paper route, sell chocolate bars on the corner, do fundraisers for charity, do things where you have to get out of your comfort zone and ask other people to give you money, is an incredibly valuable skill to have. Number two, I would double that I did a lot of this, but I would have done even more. I would try to find your way onto the speech and debate team at school to get comfortable standing in front of people, presenting your ideas, presenting your beliefs, presenting your position. Knowing how to sell is as much about knowing how to present as it is knowing how to persuade.
“The best salespeople, in my experience, are ones that understand the different modalities of teaching, the different modalities of presenting information and persuading, and they fine tune those to the specific audience that they’re addressing in that moment.” – Joey Coleman · [41:05]
Joey Coleman:
This goes back to what you were saying about being a student and looking to more mentors about the way people learn and how can I teach? The best salespeople, in my experience, are ones that understand the different modalities of teaching, the different modalities of presenting information and persuading, and they fine tune those to the specific audience that they’re addressing in that moment. So I would explore ways to do that earlier in your career, even if it’s not in a sales context, to get comfortable being in front of a microphone or being in front of a crowd, or even just an individual expressing your beliefs, your ideas and your position.
Parting Thoughts · [41:50]
Will Barron:
Love it. I appreciate that. And I appreciate the polls as well. That’s when I know the guest is really thinking about it as opposed to throwing out some random answer that just comes to the front of mind. So I appreciate that, Joey. And with that, mate, all the insights, everything that we’ve shared, for people who we want to learn more, I want to get deeper into this, tell us a little bit about the book and then of course the audio book as well, since you read it yourself.
Joey Coleman:
Absolutely. The book is called Never Lose a Customer Again. And part of the reason I’m able to point to so many examples is that’s a part of my teaching and my sharing information that’s really important to me. I feel like people learn best through stories and examples. So the book has 46 case studies. It drove my publisher mad because they were like, “We want this book to be shorter,” and I was like, “Tell me which case studies we should eliminate.” They came back and they said, “We don’t know. We like all of them.” I said, Great. Then they’re all saying in.” That was my point from the outset.
Joey Coleman:
So there’s 46 case studies from small, medium and large, national and international, product and service, online and offline. You name it, there is a business that has a parallel to your business in the book. The book’s available in hardback, it’s available as an e-book, and as you mentioned, an audio book, which I actually narrate. So I always share with folks on a podcast, if you enjoyed listening to me here on the podcast, you might enjoy listening to me read the book to you. But it’s called Never Lose a Customer Again, by Joey Coleman. You can find it wherever you might find a book or like to listen to a book.
Will Barron:
Good stuff. I’ll link to all of that and everything else that we talked about and perhaps a couple of the examples as well in the show notes to this episode over at salesman.org. And with that, Joey, I genuinely may, I’ve had a really nice time chatting with you. I don’t say that with every guest, that was a genuine compliment. And with that, I want to thank you again for joining us on The Salesman Podcast.
Joey Coleman:
Oh, Will, it’s been my pleasure. And thanks to everybody in SalesNation for listening. Really appreciate your investment of time, and I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as Will and I did.
