Eight Facts Often Overlooked that You Need to Know About Your Customers to Effectively Sell to Them

Eight facts often overlooked that you need to know about your customers and prospects to effectively sell to them:

1. Age - You must adjust your message to be age relevant. What you say and how you say it is always age sensitive. Know your clients' age profile.

2. Sex- Clearly men and women have all together different needs and should be communicated to and sold appropriate to their gender. Not doing this or trying to be gender neutral is a huge mistake and a lost opportunity.

3. Where they live - Where they live has great impact on how they think. Know their location and adjust your message to their local interests and local bias. You may not want to talk to a Southerner in the same way you would to a New Yorker.

4. Education -Very important and knowing this will help you determine how to speak with your clients.

5. Income - Obviously, crucial information.

6. Marital Status -Marketing family messages to single persons (and vice versa) can lose the deal for you.

7. What makes your prospect tick? This is a tough one but very important, what are the driving forces your prospect is dealing with, figure this out and you have a sale in hand. Don't and you're on a fishing expedition. Figure it out, do not skip this factor, and probe. You've got to know your prospect's fears, worries, concerns, excitements, hopes and dreams. When you know the conversation inside your prospect's head, you can enter it, speak to it, and build a relationship that leads to a customer.

8. Is this a onetime sale or a long term repeat business prospect? Huge difference in approach and sale depending upon this factor, know your business and your objectives and those of prospect and sell accordingly. A must know issue.

This may all seem quite obvious; however, it is quite amazing to know how few small business owners take the time and effort to find this information out, therefore missing out on a better opportunity to close a sale.

Figure out how to gather this information and you will increase your sales dramatically.

Fail to do this and you're shooting blind. Hit or miss.