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How to Read Brides’ Minds & Close Deals

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Wedding Professionals:

We all know that we need to understand our market and get to know our potential customers. According to Jonathan Fields, author of the article Psychic Marketing: How Great Marketers Read Minds and Close Deals, that’s just not enough. Fields points out that we need to fully understand their deepest darkest pains and needs. We need to know - where is the hole in their lives that our product or service is capable of filling. Fields says that to get to that place, we need to go deeper. We need to get a bit psychic! Here is Fields’ two-step approach to REALLY understand your customers in order to close more future deals.

Step 1: Find out what your potential customers are saying to themselves. At some point, your potential customers are going to be telling themselves a story about a problem they have that you can solve. The challenge is - they don’t yet know that you exist. The first step, then, is to understand the storyline and the conversations running in their heads. What are they telling themselves? What are they asking themselves? How do they FEEL about it? You need to hit their emotion veins. That’s where their “real” internal dialogue lies. Once you get to the level of emotion, you can then start to understand the real conversation and the truer drivers of the sale. But not before. Fields advises us that to uncover our potential customer's inner dialogue, you need to:

Start with your own knowledge of the wedding market. Identify customer needs, desires and most common asks and challenges.
Sit down with a potential customer and, before you ever say a thing about you, your product or service, ask what their biggest challenges are. Then ask the most important questions: What’s important to them and why? Keep circling deeper until you get to the level of emotion.
Keep asking questions, at least five layers deep on the "what’s important" and "why" questions. And really listen. Do NOT open your mouth to solve or sell or craft any marketing or sales content until you’ve reached this place.

Step 2: Enter the conversation already going on in their heads. Fields recommends that you gently guide your prospects to the belief that what you're selling is the sole resolution to their problem. Doing so transforms the experience of your message from one of “interrupt and sell” to “join and guide.” Create a message that positions your product or service as the only logical solution to the question they’re already asking. It makes it feel like the shift in storyline is coming from them, not you.

BONUS: Another way to 'read a bride's mind' is to send an online survey or poll to your existing clients. If you are interested in testing out this strategic approach for your wedding business, then here is a Constant Contact FREE 60-day Trial for BridalTweet readers. There’s no risk and no obligation. And here are some of the other benefits of using Constant Contacts surveys and polls:

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*Track and see results with detailed, easy-to-read reports.

What tactics do you use to get to know your customers better? Please share your thoughts below.

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Enjoy!

About This Blog: Christine Dyer is the Creator and Founder of BridalTweet. Christine has an MBA in marketing and shares over ten years of marketing expertise with the wedding community. In this weekly blog, you'll find advice on an array of wedding business topics such as how to market to brides, social networking, wedding PR, wedding sales, vendor networking, branding, pricing and much more. Please pass this news along to your own professional wedding network. To receive this advice in your email inbox each week, Sign Up for a Free BridalTweet Membership.

Comment by Sophia Joseph on September 27, 2011 at 5:41pm: I can say this is really fantastic post.. I don't have any ideas about this neither i can think in this way. I think it will definitely work and this post is very helpful for vendors........

Comment by Ryan Draper on September 28, 2011 at 7:00pm: When I read step one, the first thing that comes to mind to me is empathy...putting yourself in the shoes of someone else. As wedding experts, sometimes we overlook the fact that not everyone knows as much about putting a wedding together as we do. Sometimes, you just have to stop and imagine what it is like for our brides. How do they feel? What questions do they have? What are they scared of? This exercise has really helped me design my products, build my website, interact with potential clients...it just takes a little thought and a lot of empathy. Great post!

Comment by Rt. Rev. Dr. Ronald Turcot on October 10, 2011 at 5:44am: http://www.tampaweddingofficiants.com I certainly and wholeheartedly agree with Ryan Draper above. Service to the engaged couple MUST always be in the wedding vendor's mind. They will remember you and recommend you. It's just that simple, and never try to cut corners to make an extra buck. It will show up somewhere and you will lose their trust. Service should go on AFTER the wedding service is over. I have brides bring their babies to me after they get married so that I can perform their child's Baptism. I am always honored for them to remember me.