THE UNDYING AIDA

One of the oldest, if not the first, selling secret is what is known as AIDA. Until now, it is still being taught in college. This old-time analysis of the selling process is still being used by sales practitioners to date.
This is an acronym for sales method about attracting ATTENTION, arousing INTEREST, creating DESIRE and stimulating ACTION on the part of the client.
How is the first one being done? How do you attract your customer’s attention right from the start?
Mr. Fil Barbasa III has a natural way of doing this. As he introduces himself, he also tells from what province he comes.
“I am from Capiz, sir,” Fil proudly says.
“Capiz? That is where, uh…,” the client hesitates to continue.
“Yes, sir. That’s where the aswang (ghoul) and the manananggal (viscera-taker) are said to abound,” he smiles as he shakes the customer’s hand firmly with a resolved sincerity.
Mr. Jun Umali, the President and Chief Executive Office of Dutch Boy Philippines, has his own version of attracting customer’s attention.
“Whenever I introduce myself to clients, I emphasize my first name and they become curious, but the girls walk away,” he says with a smile.
“Why? What’s your first name?”
“Simplicio.”
I had a foreign participant in one of my sales seminars some years ago. He asked me how he could attract the attention of his customers.
Very candidly, I told him to be unique by making his calling cards as big as a sheet of bond paper. He followed my suggestion, and this made him famous.
Take note, however, that there attractions are merely neutralizers in effect. If your client is preoccupied, you temporarily turn his attention away from what is keeping him busy. You are not the product. You should be able to transfer his attention from yourself to your products as soon as you catch his interest. How do you do that? How do you elicit a product-focused response from your client? Showcase your product, not yourself.
If you are selling irons, do not say, “Buy this latest electrical marvel” or “Buy the modern flat iron of the 90s!” It is easier to understand and it creates a more lasting impact if you say instead, “You’ll never wear wrinkled clothes again.”
If you are selling facials, it is better to say, “You too could have skin like Lea Salonga’s!” Who would bother if you say instead, “Now, the scientifically tested product for your skin is here”?
One of the goals of attracting your client’s attention is to get his mid focused on your product. Subliminally, you make him aware immediately what benefits he will derive once he buys your product. The idea of selling things to your client is to be able to satisfy one or several of his needs. You say, “If you bought my product, you will be this or that, or you can do this or that with ease and comfort.”
If you have this attention, how do you arouse his interest?
Sales clients have different modes of interests. You cannot use one style of arousing interest for all your clients. If you are selling insurance, one client may be interested in the gross amount of coverage; the others may focus on the loan aspect. If you are selling refrigerators, some may be interested on the size of the freezer; the others, on the features and the design; and still a few others, on its capacity to generate ice. If you are selling cars, speed may be the concern of one client, while comfort or convenience may be that of another.
To arouse interest, a product demonstration is urgently needed. You should be an expert in doing presentations for the three kinds of customers: visual clients, auditory clients and kinesthetic clients. We will discuss this lengthily in a later chapter.
For your presentation to have a remarkable impact, an exceptional demonstration must be integrated in the process, which means you have to show the wonders surrounding your products, as we have earlier discussed.
The next step is creating or stimulating your customer’s desire, this part of the selling process is relatively easy because it is founded on three basic human characteristics, namely to GET, to GRAB and to POSSESS.
It is natural for all of us to have these three. The difference lies in the objects of our desires as individuals.
One client may be interested in buying proprietary shares from a development outfit. But he is not primarily interested in the profits to be derived from the transaction. He is rather interested in the privilege of being able to buy duty-free products to his heart’s content, as this is a common feature of the sales package.
An office manager may need a new desk, but his desire to have a new golf club would prevail. A housewife may need a new stove, but she would rather buy a new colored TV with matching VHS machine. A carpenter needs a leveling device for his job, but he would choose to buy a new watch. Most often, clients do not buy what they need. Instead, they buy what they desire to have.
This is the reason why a salesperson should focus on his client’s desires, not his needs, if he wants to make a sale.
Desire is motivated by two factors, namely, REASON and EMOTION. The strong desire to possess a certain object is dictated by emotion. The need to possess it is governed by reason. Hence, you can simplify the process of selling if you focus on your client’s emotion in order to spark his desire to possess, rather than concentrate on his reason to magnify the need. Reason and emotion complement each other, but it is advisable to stimulate the latter in building up you client’s desire.
When the client’s desire has been ascertained, you need to get into action. You need to close the sale. Your client needs to sign the order form. How do you make him do this?
You must be aware that you have come to the most critical moment of the selling process. At this point, either you build on or destroy everything you have worked for right from the start. Hence, extreme care is to be observed at this stage while talking with your client.
It is also a big help if you can clearly spot or identify the buying gestures of your client while he is reviewing the brochures you have given him or while he is making last-minute check on the product sample. You should be sensitive to the predecision statements he makes while talking with you.
What are these buying gestures? How do you spot them? What are these so-called predecision statements?
Let us take this example from the encyclopedia salespersons. In order to be speedy and effective in making their sales calls, the unit manager always finds time to accompany his new recruits in making their presentations. Clarita Barredo was one of them.
In an out-of-town saturation type of sales operation, Clarita’s group went from house to house. The unit manager first accompanied Clarita to her client’s house. Before Clarity could reach the middle of her presentation, her unit manager intervened. A minute later, the client signed an order form. This was a closed sale for Clarita, but she was not totally happy about it. She could not understand why her unit manager interrupted her presentation. She also could not understand why they were able to sell almost instantly to her client.
When she asked her unit manager for some explanations, this was her answer:
“Your sale has been closed a while back. But you haven’t noticed.”
“Closed, ma’am? How did that happen? How did you know?”