Franziska: Hi and welcome back. ”¬

Christo: Hi there. Welcome back! ”¬

Franziska: First thing we would like to talk to you about in this show is the decision-making period. And I have a very tricky question that I want to test Christo on. And the question is, you ready? ”¬

Christo: Always ready. ”¬

Franziska: The question is how long does it take someone from having an idea that they might need your product or service to actually giving you money, to actually deciding to buy from you. ”¬

Christo: This is a bazillion dollar question. How long does it take for someone to decide to buy? The answer is it could be any period of time”¬
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Franziska: Yeah, it depends. ”¬

Christo: It depends. Some people are going to be qualified and they‘re going to know how you‘ll apply stacks up in the market. They‘ve got a red-hot burning desire or they‘re ready to buy and they‘ve done their research and they might come across your business and just buy like that. Some people might take 6 months, some might take 2 years. ”¬

Franziska: I reckon you got the question but yeah you‘re right. The buying behavior depends on the person. Some people buy really quickly. Some people take a little longer. Also, the urgency of the problem that you have, if you have a back pain, you‘re going to make a decision really quickly. Which power pack(??) do you want to work with. If you‘re buying a house you might take a little longer. And also where are you at in the buying cycle? ”¬

Christo: Yes, absolutely. ”¬

Franziska: So what do we do? ”¬

Christo: What we need to do is own the decision-making period. ”¬

Franziska: I like it.”¬

Christo: What we‘re going to do..this is ah..because the decision-making period..it could be 2 minutes, another customer might be 3 weeks, another someone else might be 18 months and you don‘t know how long it‘s going to actually take. We‘ve all done it, I bet everybody watching the video, we‘ve all probably Googled 10 different things in the last 6 months but you still haven‘t bought. Some of them you might never buy. Some of them you‘re going to buy at all different times in the future. So we need to own this decision-making period as best as we can. So how do we do that? A couple of examples. I‘ll give you an example of online and an example of offline. So let‘s say somebody comes across your website, that‘s how we mostly start our buying decisions at the moment. ”¬

Franziska: Yeah, we often Google. ”¬

Christo: We do Google. Yeah, let‘s say I‘m interested in buying your product so I‘ll probably open your website and I‘ll probably open your two biggest competitors‘ websites at the same time, because I‘m going to say that‘s how you stack up. So what you could have as one example of owning a decision-making there is by having brilliant content, first of all, because it‘s going to make me “oh wow this is interesting and will be giving me some value.” Any ways we can provide value is how I own the decision-making period. That‘s kind of a bit of a general rule. So you might have an opt-in on the website which has some fantastic information, which I‘m interested in getting, it says you‘re interested in buying a camera but haven‘t got a fenced idea about megapixels, batteries mode whatever it is because we don‘t know this. But i‘m interested in buying a camera. I‘m probably going to get, put more details into getting that information if that‘s going to help me speed up all of the sorting through what‘s out there. ”¬

Franziska: Yeah, exactly. ”¬

Christo: Also just providing content then to me and you can email me. You‘ve got my details in your database. ”¬

Franziska: This is really another important question. People … some say about email marketing..isn‘t that a little bit outdated? No, not at all. Email marketing, for some businesses that do a really good job at it, it‘s their biggest-selling driver. Their sales driver really through email. ”¬

Christo: Absolutely. Another thing that you can do with online too is… let‘s say I come to your website this time, I don‘t buy right away, I don‘t like the look of your opt-in this time, you then have a re-marketing set up. So your ads will then follow me around because you know I visited a specific page on your sites. It‘s like I put my hand up to say I‘m interested but not right now, you also don‘t know when it‘s going to be so you will keep your products and services in front of me. ”¬

Franziska: What you do offline? ”¬

Christo: Offline. An example… the same thing. So I‘ll think about how can I provide value? Now this is going to vary for different businesses. So I‘m like walking in your store, you might give me a free sample of a cookie or something to try. You‘re like trying to get some value into my hands before asking for a sale. If I don‘t buy right away, I might phone you up and say hey I‘m interested in working with you as a consultant or whatever you offer, or your accounting firm or your lawyer, or whatever, I‘m interested in this, you could have a few key sources to send to people who are in the decision-making period. So I might call you up and say how much is it? How does it work? Let‘s have a conversation. You give me the info and I say cool, I‘m going to go away and think about it. You know, thanks for the info. What you can then move to is okay, great! In the meantime, I have this resource template which will help you define the top things or the top checklist to prepare for which will save you time and money. When you‘re working with someone like me, your new accountant or whatever it is, I will email that out to you. Would you like that? Oh yes, if it‘s specific, so you have key resources, just you might need 4 or 5 main things that people additionally come to you for, you send that out. And it gives you a good reason to then follow up as well. So if you haven‘t left the conversation with like oh great let‘s talk next week, you‘ve left the conversation with like ah I‘m not ready right now, I can‘t buy, this is a nice way to say, look I can give you this resource. Then you can follow up again and say hey I just want to make sure you got it and how are you going with that and is there anything else we can help you with? So you‘ll look to provide more and more value. And you might suddenly say hey we have another blog which you could find very beneficial as well or a podcast or a video. Here‘s the link to it. I thought you might benefit from it. There‘s something nice to entail it. That‘s a good example of value. ”¬

Franziska: And the beauty about having a little bit of variety is because not everyone has to say meets. So if you have different things and offer you can really tailor it and not giving everyone the same things. So now a call to action for you is look at how you can own this decision-making period so that people don‘t go somewhere else? It‘s always a little bit of a shame if you have such a good product or service but people go to your competitors. So own the first sort of 10, 20, 30 days depending on the urgency of the solution. ”¬

Christo: It could be a sample, a trial, a taste test, you know just value. ”¬

Franziska: Have a go at it and let us know how you go. Also check out “Pick of the Bunch”, our podcast. We talk about a lot of stuff in more depth. This is a little bit shorter so have a look there, too and we‘ll catch you next time. ”¬