Seven Steps to Win Consumers Over

Start with a target demographic: say professional women, 42, married with two kids, 8 and 10, in suburban homes 25+ years old, who love to entertain.

Choose a real person from that demographic. Then speak to that person and find out their list of problems with their kitchen, in real life. For example, is their kitchen too small, with outdated cabinets, no convection oven and walled off from the rest of the house?

Choose one problem, then expand upon it.

Perhaps the one thing that’s top of mind is that the kitchen is separated from rest of the home.

Then get all of the details on that one criterion. Why does she want the kitchen to be open? Open to what? Family room? Dining room? How does she see it divided? Peninsula? Eating area? Island? Learn everything you can about that one criterion, using a real person to get feedback.

Once you have the Target Profile you can create the Trigger. D’Souza identifies the Trigger as the message that stands out, gets attention and gets the brain to respond with curiosity.

For example:

Target: Moms in 25-year-old suburban homes who like to entertain.

Problem: Closed off kitchens make it hard to entertain.

Solution: Open up the kitchen to make entertaining easier.

Trigger: “We create kitchens that make entertaining easier.”

Hoped for response: “How do you do that?”

Now you need to keep expanding on problems and solutions to keep the prospect interested. For example, from here you might say, “Having trouble doing a dinner party for 10 in your tiny kitchen? It’s not just opening up the kitchen that’s the solution. You need to do it cost efficiently, so we try to move just one wall.”

So now you’ve brought up another problem (cost efficiency) and a solution (just move one wall).

CLIENT OBJECTIONS

Objections, of course, are bound to happen. The key here is to be prepared by anticipating them and preparing answers in advance. Address the most common ones on your Web site.

For example, list as many objections as you can to “opening up the kitchen”

+ Won’t it be expensive?

+ Won’t it make a mess?

+ Will it ruin the adjoining walls?

+ Will people see my dirty dishes?

+ Will it be noisy?

+ Will the cooking smell go all through the house?

+ How can I tell what it will look like?

You can answer these objections, but it’s even better if your past customers do that through Testimonials. But not the interchangeable ones you read on so many sites. “Joe’s Kitchens did a fabulous job and their people were great.”

Instead, help craft testimonials that address common objections. Don’t just ask customers to write a recommendation. Instead, either speak to them personally or give them specific questions to address. D’Souza recommends ones like: “What was the obstacle that would have prevented you from buying a new kitchen or bath?” Or, “what do you like most about your new kitchen or bath?”

So you might end up with a testimonial like: “I wanted to open up my kitchen because I entertain a lot but I was concerned about the mess it would make, and how it would look. I love the new eating peninsula that divides the kitchen and family room because it’s a great place to serve appetizers, and it also hides the dirty dishes. And the crews covered the floors and cleaned up every night so it wasn’t as disruptive as I thought.” Notice how detailed and credible this type of testimonial sounds.

Other ideas might be:

+ “I was afraid my personal design ideas would be ignored, but…”

+ “I heard horror stories about bath projects going over budget, but…”

+ “I was afraid we’d go months without a finished bathroom, but…”

All of this sounds good, but customers will still have reservations. The next step in removing them, D’Souza notes, is Risk Reversal. The obvious risks customers perceive can often be calmed through warranties and guarantees on products and workmanship. But D’Souza advises going further and understanding the prospect’s unspoken, hidden risks such as, “What if I don’t like the design, cabinets, floor, etc.?” Or, “What if I can’t get you to come back and fix something after the job is done?”