Last time I asked how do you prove the benefits you claim for your offer can be delivered? Assuming your approach is effective, the yes no matrix can help you anticipate objections and respond to them.
It works like this:
| Advantages | Disadvantages | |
| Say yes to the offer | ||
| Say no to the offer |
The table helps the vendor marshal their arguments. Work through the four central cells for your own offer. Your answers in all four cells can inform your marketing of your offer by helping you anticipate objections and so work out how to respond to them.
Each of the quarters in this table can be turned to your advantage. I’ll illustrate this with notes I made some time ago for my business. My business has moved on so I can comment on these notes as if they were someone else!
Advantages of Saying Yes
At the time, I saw benefits for a client’s organisation and for their website. I wouldn’t break things down in the same way now but it is interesting to see what I identified at the time:
Organisation
- Clarity about your vision or purpose
- Identification of your cause, product and / or service
- Identification of the issues your organisation is facing
- Identify your market and how to sell to it in line with your values
Website
- A website you own, control and understand.
- Understanding how to make the most of your site
- Not tied to one web designer or consultant
- Site security, etc taken care of so you can focus on content
To some degree these benefits miss the mark; they don’t quite express the benefits. Let’s work on this business and see how its benefits can be better expressed. This is a useful exercise for you. Write down your benefits, leave them for a few weeks and then revisit and improve them.
Organisation
- A clear statement of your vision and purpose so that you attract potential customers to your offer
- A product, service and/or cause, designed to meet the needs of your customers
- Identify the main reasons why your organisation is not as effective at marketing as it could be
- Clarity about how your market’s needs match your values so that you can market with conviction
Website
- A website under your control so that you can adapt it to support your local marketing needs as circumstances change
- Understand the fine details of presentation that enable visitors to respond to your website in the way you wish
- Independence so that you can select the website support you need for the next stage in your journey
- Understanding of the basics of security so that you can rely on your site to be supporting your marketing
These are not final statements for any business but they illustrate how you can target the advantages of your offer to meet the needs of your potential customers.
Costs of Saying Yes
Here are my historic answers:
- Financial – may be hard for some groups
- Time – especially in organisations run by volunteers
- Valued practices may have to change
The point to be made here is to be upfront about the costs of saying yes.
- By being honest, you can increase the confidence your potential customer has in you.
- They also need to understand the commitment you are asking them to make, especially where success depends as much on their contribution as on yours.
- It shows you have thought through the offer and you are sharing an insight into what it will mean for the potential customer
Advantages of Saying No
- You can continue as you are
- Likely to be less disruptive
- Saves money and time (or does it?)
Each of these can be turned to your advantage. If the potential client is seeking change, continuing as they are may not be as attractive as it might first appear. Saying no may appear to be the safe option but it depends whether they really need this to the extent they are able and willing to put in the commitment. The money and time saved here is not the same money and time they would save or generate by taking up your offer. They save the cost of the offer but lose whatever benefits your offer implies. Your task is to show you can deliver the improved performance and that it is worth more than the immediate costs.
Costs of Saying No
- Rubbish website that consumes time for no benefit
- A site held hostage by a designer who is no longer interested in your site
This is a poor answer. This last quarter in the matrix is about reinforcing the value of the offer to the customer. You are offering a benefit of great value to them and so they lose out if they say no.
One major issue for a lot of organisations is the status quo appears to be comfortable. It is possible to continue bumbling along until the money runs out, never taking up the challenge to reach your full potential.
The Moribund Organisation
These two bullets illustrate the typical practices of a moribund organisation. Carrying on as you are with no innovative change is a recipe for catastrophic failure. The alternatives any organisation faces is to grow or to fail. Ultimately, you may be discerning whether your particular offer is right for the potential customer but they need to understand that if they choose ‘no’, they must go to an alternative offer with a better fit. Sometimes you may be able to help them find that better fit.
Any marketing is a skill in helping the potential customer express what they need and then finding a good match for them. They are seeking help and must not simply decide to abide in the status quo, which has never worked. Without vision organisations perish.
How can you help organisations understand they need constant developmental change?