 President's
Corner
This week I want to touch on
Negotiating some more because
getting the note holders to call
is one thing but getting them to
say yes is another.
People buy (or in our
case sell their notes) based on emotion. It's your job as the note broker
to trigger those emotions to create interest because after all interest equals
opportunity.
Initial Benefit Statement - An explanation of what you are offering, what
it means and why anyone should care - in the exact opposite order.
Why should
someone consider buying your product? Why should they take the time to hear you
out, let alone meet with you?
If you don't believe in your product
or your services, no one else will. But believing in what you offer goes beyond
having a good mental mindset. Being able to articulate in a clear, concise
manner is essential to succeeding as a note broker.
You must be able to state your
initial benefit statement as a universal message. Having a "scripted" commercial
explaining how you can help others from the onset is critical to your success.
If you are at a networking
event, your initial benefit statement should intrigue others so they will chat
with you rather than move on to the next attendee. When you speak on the
phone for the first time to someone, tell them why they should care.
If you were from Publisher's Clearing
House and your job was to visit businesses to give them checks for $1 million,
do you think top company executives would stop what they are doing to speak with
you for a moment? It would depend on what you say.
If you say to the first person you
meet, "I'd like to speak to So-and-So," without identifying who you were and
your purpose, it would be hard to get an audience with a top executive. Wouldn't
it?
Features
Identify what you have in your
arsenal, what you physically offer.
For instance, at Armstrong Capital,
our services include the purchase and sale of first position seller financed
notes on the secondary market. We offer a multitude of lump sum cash
options for the note holder by purchasing all or part of their income stream to
custom tailor an exclusive transaction to meet their specific needs.
Some might say a "multitude of
options" or "custom tailor" are benefits. But these are merely types of
services. While other companies offer generic full purchase options to the note
holders, we create an exclusive purchase option designed specifically for a
particular note holders situation.
Advantages
In any note purchase opportunity
three outcomes are possible, not two:
The note holder can either accept
your service (your pricing options), accept your competition's service, or do
nothing - and make no change.
The advantage is why your feature
will make their current situation better than it was before- from the note
broker's perspective.
A critical difference between
advantages and benefits is that an advantage is your interpretation of why a
feature is better, not the prospect's.
For instance, an advantage of
Armstrong Capital's multitude of options is that now the note broker can control
their own destiny.
While some may ask if that's a
benefit, who says controlling your own destiny is always a good thing? Sure, we
think it is, but perhaps a larger company has a system in place, where they
don't want note brokers thinking for themselves, crazy as it sounds.
Benefits
Benefits answers the age old
questions customers ask, "What's in it for me?"
A benefit is how your service will
help your customers. It's a "translation" of the features and advantages to fit
the individual prospect.
Knowing and being able to verbalize
benefits of your product separates you from your competition.
Knowing benefits makes you a
professional, not just another note broker. For instance, the benefit of each of
our features at Armstrong Capital is three fold:
- Offer Seller financed note holders
liquidity
- Offer unique and competitive
pricing options
- Quick, professional and thorough
closing and funding
Your turn,
when you are ready:
1. Write 10 features of your product and company
2. Write 10 advantages of these features
3. Write 10 benefits of these advantages
4. Compile them into an initial benefit statement for yourself
People can't be interested in what they don't know exists.
Remember, Success Demands
Action! Keep on marketing, it’s going to
work! TWITA!
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