I recently walked into one of my favorite department stores that I don’t frequent very often. I wanted to purchase a pair of shoes as a gift for my son. The salesman in the corner approached me and asked if he could help. I said I’m just looking for now but thanked him and continued viewing the display of shoes. A few moments later he has four boxes of shoes piled in his arms and says with a smile on his face that he had some shoes he felt I would like, would I want to try a few on and see what I think.
It was a kind gesture. The salesman wanted to help. He also wanted to make a sale.
The problem was he didn’t know what I wanted to do with the shoes.
Jim is an excellent salesperson. He is energetic, confident, and very likable. If he meets with you, you are going to buy his services.
Jim wants to grow his legal services business and attract more quality leads. He wants his business to be able to run efficiently without him having to hustle for sales. Less than two years ago Jim had zero traffic to his website and could not be found online. Today he is more easily found and averages around 300 new local visitors to his site each month. Jim’s problem is not with traffic; he has a funnel problem. The traffic to his website is not converting into leads.
While traffic is good, it’s not the result you want at the end of the funnel. The ability to understand what the customer wants to do next is the difference between converting traffic into leads and leads into sales.
When you are aware of the context of the customer’s story, and you can determine what your customer wants to do next, you then put yourself in the best position to begin growing your business.
So, what does your customer want to do next?