06/11/2024
Is it challenging to get the right people to take an interest in your offers?
Is it hard for them to always see and respond favourably when you pitch?
If you said Yes,
Then you should read how this Vendor did it.
During my undergraduate days, there was this cafeteria where we went to eat.
In the cafeteria, there were two vendors.
One to your left and the other to your right.
Both sold the same food, at the same price, in the same style.
But...
Many people always flocked to the left vendor.
And the right one had at most 3 or 4 people there at any given time.
Uh... Why?
I mean, if they sold the same foods, at the same price, in the same style,
Why did people happily wait in long queues just to eat from the vendor from the left,
And totally ignore the one on the right?
It doesn't make sense, right?
Let me expose what happened.
Read closely.
As a business owner, one of the first things you must understand is the difference between:
- Leads,
- Prospects, and
- Customers.
That was the first thing the Left Vendor did.
She understood her leads were those students who saw her business, the foods she offered and got interested.
Her prospects were those leads who wanted to know more about what she was selling and how they could get it.
Her customers were those prospects who bought her food.
Next, she had to plan how to:
- make every lead a prospect.
- make every prospect a customer.
- keep each customer loyal to her.
She structured her marketing get her the best leads,
And her sales process to focus on converting her best prospects.
This is exactly what she did.
She had this beautiful flyer her workers gave to everyone who walked into the cafeteria, whether they were hungry or not.
It was impossible to look at those flyers and not get hungry immediately.
There were high-quality photos of foods and real students eating those foods.
I remember the first time I picked up one of those flyers and I saw my senior colleague enjoying what looked like fufu and egusi soup with him fighting with one big pomo 😂, I immediately felt like eating fufu and egusi.
But the best part of the flyer was the text.
It read:
"The first taste is good alone.
The second taste is better with a friend.
But the third taste is best with 3 friends.
Bring 3 friends, get 1 free meal."
And it worked!
It worked like magic.
3 brilliant things they did with the flyer:
1. They understood students value FREE food more than anything else.
2. They showed photos of groups of students eating 4 plates of food.
3. They directly spoke to the desire of hungry Nigerian students.
And it worked well.
But that was not enough.
She knew she was the Boss in this game.
But she was not satisfied.
She wanted to prove it beyond any (un)reasonable doubt.
How did I know that?
Because of what she did next.
She began to market the Right's Vendor's food.
She literally said,
"If you don't like waiting on queues,
You can go to the right and order the same food.
Don't worry, we'll keep your space on the queue...because we know you'll come right back to us."
Imagine the audacity.
I didn't understand it the first time I saw it on a flyer.
So, I decided to try it.
3 minutes later, I came back to my spot on the queue.
Why?
I didn't have the mind to waste my money on bad food when I could have better.
That's some crazy reverse psychology right there.
Here's the lesson:
1. Understand your target market like a spoon of rice understands the road from the plate to your mouth.
2. Be bold to show them what they'd get from you.
And most importantly,
3. Be crazy good at what you do that when you send your prospect to your competition, they won't have the mind to go cos they know they'd always get the best from you.
Once you have this effect on them, broooo just name your price.
Will this be difficult?
Probably.
Will this take time?
Most likely.
Will this pay off?
Extremely.
Do the work others avoid,
Walk the path others shy from.
There are no shortcuts to success.
Always remember that.
What is worth doing is worth doing RIGHT.
