We’ve been talking a lot lately about different levels of awareness, from the entry-level awareness necessary to let someone know we exist, to the comfort-level awareness we need for prospects to feel comfortable enough with us to place that first order, to the top of mind awareness necessary to start dominating your market. And all of that requires a specific type of contact. In fact, it’s exactly the type of contact that we’ll be talking about today. Are we there yet?
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Have you ever traveled in a car with small children? It’s fun for maybe the first ten to fifteen minutes. The quest for new horizons, the thrill of adventure, the license plate game, the glamour of traveling to new places.
But as the fun starts to wear off, one question often pops up.
Are we there yet? No.
Are we there yet? Not yet.
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Ahhhhh!
Children are masters of repetition of contact. They can say the same thing over and over again and not think a thing of it. They don’t realize that it can become a bit, shall we say, tedious.
So what does all this have to do with creating awareness?
Well, in a nutshell, creating awareness requires repetition of contact. It’s very likely we’ll need to be in touch with someone more than once before they’re ready to buy from us. In fact, numerous studies over the years have indicated that someone will need to hear from us anywhere from nine to more than thirty times before they’ll be ready to buy from us.
Some salespeople hear this and take an “are we there yet” approach.
Are you ready to buy? Would you like to place an order? What’s it going to take to put you behind the wheel of this beautiful new car today?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
So if you want to create top of mind awareness without driving people crazy, repetition of contact alone is not enough.
You need to engage in “intelligent” repetition of contact.
It’s a type of contact that provides value to the prospect. It’s helpful. It’s thoughtful. It’s engaging. It’s anything but “are we there yet?”
Intelligent repetition of contact means mixing things up a bit. We provide helpful insights. We anticipate questions that might not have come up yet. We mix up the delivery mechanism, meaning we don’t just call on the phone or just email or just text. We don’t say the same things in the same way over and over and over.
Intelligent repetition of contact requires a level of consideration and thoughtfulness that is often missing in conversation today. And no, that’s not purely a generational thing. If you’re a baby boomer, don’t point fingers at others. There are plenty of people, of all generations who struggle with this.
It really is an art form that needs to be mastered if you ever want to accomplish all you’re capable of achieving.
How can you reach out to the same person multiple times without making it sound repetitive or annoying?
What new facts or ideas can you bring to the conversation that will pique interest, instead of killing it?
How will you use the lesson of “are we there yet” to convert repetition of contact into “intelligent” repetition of contact?
If you have a question about this topic or any other that you’d like to have addressed in a future podcast, just go to asktopsecrets.com. That’s asktopsecrets.com.
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