Journal :: Listening To The Buying Signals

Published: July 19, 2004
Author: Paul Cadde
Category: Marketing
Permalink: Listening To The Buying Signals

Sometimes we get so used to negativity we treat everything as bad news. And that is very bed news for sales. In sales we have to be the person who sees the glass is half full, not half empty.

Clients and prospective clients give us buying signals all the time, yet we so often miss them. Don?t get trapped in the negativity you can see all around in many of your colleagues. Treat each meeting with your clients and prospective clients as an earnings opportunity and listen hard for those buying signals. I think you will be surprised at the result.

Sometimes, though, even the client does not recognise the buying signals he or she is giving. But buying signals they can be if you only treat them in that way. Let me give you a couple of examples.

How many clients have said to you, when you have tried to interest them in retirement planning, ?my business is my pension?? Well, your answer can be ?exactly! And that is precisely what I want to talk to you about. Making sure your business can become your pension.? Now there are various ways in which that can be achieved, but at this point it does not really matter how you are planning to do this ? the point is you are showing that the solutions you can provide match with the desires of the client.

Or how about this? In a recent issue of Financial Adviser it was revealed that the Mortgage Trust has conducted a study in which 35% of buy to let landlords indicated their property investments were there to fund their retirement. If the purpose of the property investment is to obtain income in retirement, perhaps someone should be advising this very large number of potential clients how to get those properties into the tax shelter of a proper retirement fund. This should then give them an even greater income in retirement.

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