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Rules for "One-shot Sales"

By
Real Estate Agent with Bandazian & Holden

Or "Embracing the naive prospect" by Seth Godin, the marketing guru.

Seth points out some valuable insights for anyone that sells to a target market of consumers that are making a "once in a lifetime" purchase. (i.e., a DJ for a wedding, or a Realtor that deals primarily with first-time home buyers)

At first, I thought I would be pointing to this mainly for the benefit of other Realtors, obviously with the first thought coming to mind of how I deal with first-time buyers and sellers of businesses and real estate every day.  Then I realized that beyond my bubble there are industries that deal with this "naive" type of customer every day, too.

Now "naive" in this sense is not meant to put down anyone, it's just to acknowledge the experience level of your target market. 

Wedding vendors are a great example of this -- the wedding process is not something that most people end up going through enough to be experts at it (let's hope not, at least).  It is a crazy time trying to plan it, and even if you have a wedding planner, you still had to pick that person.

Visit Seth's site and see what he has to say about how to deal with these "naive" consumers.  I think his insight was right on track.

I would love to hear how anyone else is dealing with this issue in their own businesses.  I submit that this blog is one of the ways that I am addressing it in my business.

... [for comments and other articles, visit Richmond Business & Commercial News]
marti garaughty
garaughty.com - Montreal, QC
a highly caffeinated creative type...
 Hi Nathan... I'm surprised that I'm the first one to comment on this, you made some excellent points in your post. I especially like the analogy with wedding vendors. Thanks for the link, I love Seth Godin's stuff but hadn't seen that article before.
Dec 20, 2006 05:38 PM
Nathan Hughes
Bandazian & Holden - Richmond, VA

Thank you, Marti!

I am a regular reader of Seth's blog, and find lots of tidbits that never would have crossed my mind.

Dec 21, 2006 03:20 AM
Chris Hendricks
Walnut Creek, CA
Interesting.  My son works weekends for a well-established DJ operation that runs about 50 events a weekend.  They host a "party" for prospective clients to come and socialize with the staff and mingle, chat, and get comfortable before deciding if they'll contract and, if so, whether they have a preference for a certain DJ.  There logic was the same-- a guarantee of a good event after the fact was worthless but a comfort level going in was gold....  It's a 'relationship" sale and they don't mind A) investing in the relationship before there's a 'deal' done B) putting their 'product' out there for inspection in advance and C) inviting their clients to shop around and be absolutely certain about where they'll be comfortable.  It's hard for a photographer to re-shoot a wedding, for a caterer to un-bake the chicken, and for the first dance to be a 'do over' moment. 
Dec 23, 2006 03:28 AM