Are You Pushing or Persuading Your Customers?

Pushing, without persuading is not a good way to win over clients.

But no pushing means nothing pushes back.

The reality is that the things you desperately want are not going to just be put in your lap, no matter how great your site, product or offer. At some point you’re going to need to push and promote your business, but you can do it without alienating or upsetting your customers!

Here’s how to use just enough push to persuade.

Remind yourself you are pushing for a good reason

What motivates you about your business? Is it moving towards a goal like, getting more clients or having that holiday by the beach drinking Pina Coladas? Or is it moving away from something like going hungry, going homeless or going back to the cubicle? Remind yourself why you have to make it work, why you have to go after it and why a possible rejection isn’t worth a damn when compared to it.

Ask

Simple but often overlooked is the simple action of asking for something. Asking works well in two ways. You can ask for something you want, and you can ask someone what it is they want that you can offer. If you’re worried you’ll make a fool of yourself by not asking perfectly remember this:

• The more you do it the better you will become
• The more you do it the more confident you will become
• You miss every shot you take

I’ll stop here to tell a little story about my mum.

In the seventies when my dad moved to Saudi Arabia to work, my mum needed to  provide an income, but there were limited opportunities for women, mum couldn’t drive so interviews were hard to get to, there was no Internet, and only a few people in those days had phone lines.

A lady over the road who had a phoneline, was going away for a few days and told mum she could use it if she needed it, as well as her driver. As soon as she left my mum headed over, armed with a phone directory and steely determination. She worked her way through the companies offering them her very limited computer skills.

The first few calls mum sounded nervous, was unsure of herself and was not very convincing. Unsurprisingly, no-one was interested and she found nothing on the first day.

She couldn’t give up. She made more calls, practiced her responses and began sounding a little more confident.

Time was running out, without the phone and the driver, setting up and getting to a job interview could take weeks to arrange. Suddenly mum became a lot more confident.

She found a job by the end of the second day.

My mum is not a pushy person, but the combination of the importance of the task and her willingness to ask again and again, produced amazing results. I know that you can produce even more amazing results by reminding yourself why you want your business to succeed and beating your fear of asking.

Don’t wait till everything is perfect to ask

A lot of people keeping things under wraps until the perfect time, I’ve done it myself, convincing that someone, some client or some organisation is far too big for me to get in touch with them just yet. Don’t wait. Do it. It might be too soon, but you’ll learn a lot from approaching targets you think are out of reach and if you get even one acceptance, you’ve earned your right to squeal with glee.

Keep pushing – but politely

Don’t hear back straight away? Give them a bit of breathing room but don’t be afraid to ask again…and again if necessary. If you’re being polite and respectful then they shouldn’t get hacked off with you and if they do, then there’s a good chance your personalities aren’t going to work well together. You want people to know that you’re passionate and keen to work with them, for them, help them out whatever, but you don’t want to beg or be desperate for it. If you do, you will find price haggles, unreasonable requests and a pain in the neck.

Disguise your pushing by using different ways to communicate

If you send someone email after email after email asking the same thing, that can turn into a hassle not hustle. If you can reach them in different ways then it’s a creative hustle! Use your powers, whether it’s email, phone, in person, blog posts, conversations with other people, free samples, creative gifts. Remember point one. If this is really important to you, it’s worth trying different ways to skin that cat.

How far is too far?

Any kind of legal action…

What about you? Have you pushed yourself to hustle harder and been surprised by what you got? Is there something you’d love to ask for but want to wait until the time is right? Let’s hear about it in the comments below and get some hustling encouragement going!