There is a common belief that business growth is mainly influenced by three factors: people, time and access to funds. But what would you do if your small business still struggles, despite having proper resources in place? How do you know what metrics you need to consider when launching a new product, starting a campaign, or even targeting a new market segment? What is the correct way to do it?

A successful business is about your customer and how you communicate with them. If you understand your customer and their decision-making process, your sales are going up. If you do not, the sales are following an up and down trend. There is no grey area here.

The first step to establish your business’ main metrics is finding answers to a few simple questions. How well do you know your customer? Do you understand their drivers and triggers? How do they perceive your efforts to promote your products? And ultimately, why are they buying from you?

As a starting point into how your customer makes decisions, let’s explore how the brain works. Human brain has five main responsibilities: 

Sensations

Sensations are an ongoing “process” of receiving information via receptors about our environment. It enables us to evaluate it and make decisions. Human’s most developed organ is the eye, which is directly connected to the brain. It is our primary organ that helps us navigate. Dogs use smell as their prime way to make sense of their environment. Bees use the Earth magnetic field to orient.

Perceptions

Perceptions are the sensations we are paying attention to when stimulated. You are unaware you hold a pen in your hand while watching your favourite football match, because your attention is at the game; you are stimulated by what you see on TV. Perception is where your attention is.

Thoughts

Thoughts are a mix of perceptions and sensations, and it includes contact memory and context. A swim in the ocean at sunset is a relaxing experience, but if you spot shark fins in a few yards, it changes the event’s overall perception. The way we create thoughts and memories is influenced by the way we correlate perceptions with sensations.

Feelings

There are five main categories of feelings we express and understand: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and enjoyment. When we are tired, it can be felt in our body, in the way we know ourselves. Emotions is where we capture this state, is the way we translate what we perceive.

Behaviours

Human behaviour is classified into four main personalities: optimistic, pessimistic, trusting, and envious. Behaviour is the potential and expressed capacity (mentally, physically and socially) of individuals or groups to respond to internal and external stimuli during their lives. Behaviour is connected with decision making.

To summarize, people develop behaviours based on their perception, and behaviour is synchronized with decision-making. If you manage to capture that your sales are all about how your customer makes decisions in the perception-behaviour process, this is a significant step forward. Once you understand how it works, you must fine-tune how you communicate about your product; how you make your product more about the customer and less about you.

Do you want to make a difference and stand out by using best practices of sales? Nothing easier: reach BRIDCON for a consulting session.