A note from Alice: My friend Dianna Geairn, The Irreverent Sales Girl, recently wrote a brilliant post musing about the positive benefits of incorporating more visual elements into our sales. This post spoke directly to me! How often have you deleted a long, wordy email or zoned out as you checked your voicemails? Dianna thinks the key to capturing someone’s attention and closing the deal might be by using more fun, engaging visual elements. Check out her thoughts below.
“A picture paints a thousand words” We all know it to be true. But, as we move into the Visual Economy of Sales, understanding this truth is vital for the salesperson to compete and earn business in the future.
Marketers have known this for years. Look at TV, billboards, posters, magazine ads, website banners. All visual. All ways to capture your attention to help you buy.
Cavemen knew it. The best way to tell a story is to put pictures on the wall.
Now, more than ever before, salespeople need to be learning, exploring, experimenting, and educating themselves on how to incorporate visual cues into their sales messages. Or, they will get left behind.
What is the Visual Economy of Sales?
The Visual Economy of Sales is a simple concept.
The sales pros who learn how to use visual economy will earn more of their prospects’ mindshare as well as their wallet share — which means more closed deals and more money in their own bank account.
“Economy” has a delightful two-sided meaning that solidly backs up the idea.
First, “economy” can refer to using time and space well. If you tell your sales story in a picture, it means your buyer takes less time to consume the information, or economy of time. And, if 1 picture = 1,000 words (almost the length of this article), you have achieved economy of space, too.
Second, “economy” also refers to transactions in a marketplace. More transactions in your market lead to more dollars in your pocket.
Get the picture? (hee hee, See what I did there?)
How do I know this is true?
Look for yourself. Do your prospects respond to your emails more or less often? “Less,” right?
(If your answer is “more,” don’t be lulled to sleep by your current success. The Visual Economy will soon apply to you, too.)
The brain science
OK. I did that to get your attention. I’m not a brain scientist, but everything I read says that:
- My prospect gets a rush of dopamine every time he deletes my email or voicemail.
- My prospect gets a rush of good feelings when he fills in the blanks on a puzzle, sees an image that engages him, or is tickled pink by a positive image.
So, why are you spending your precious time writing brilliant email messages and leaving fabulous voice mails? Just to give your prospects the joy of deleting?
What a waste of your genius!
Why not find ways to communicate your message that is visually engaging, distracting, and irresistible?
The proof is all around us
Marketers tell us that people engage more frequently with infographics and checklists today than they do with white papers and eBooks.
Snapchat’s got the 25- to 35-year-olds rapt.
Instagram and Pinterest are still fast-growing social channels.
YouTube is the most popular search engine.
People who use emojis when they text are more likely to have happy relationships.
It goes on and on.
What to do about it?
I don’t know!
But, we’re about to find out. It’s time to start researching and experimenting. Here are some thoughts:
- What happens if you include a GIF of your product doing its thing in your next email message?
- How about using a video service that turns your email into a personal 10-second video?
- Can you express all the data you want to share with your clients in an infographic? (It costs about $5 to get one made from Fiverr or UpWork).
- Can you share a bunch of logos of your current customers instead of a laundry list?
- Can you create a checklist of the pain points your typical customer encounters and send that instead?
- Send it on Facebook, send it on LinkedIn, send it on text, send it on Snapchat! (Soon, the people who control big budgets will be the same ones who are accustomed to engaging on these platforms).
Join the experiment!
Let’s discover how to get our prospects’ attention visually! Let’s make it personal, engaging, irresistible. Let’s get NOTICED!
I would love to hear the sales wins you are experiencing as you use visuals to outpace your competition. And, I’ll share mine, too. And, don’t EVER forget to… Love ‘em ALL UP!
The Irreverent Sales Girl
(By the way, the irony is not lost on me. This blog post is in writing and not pictures. Give me a break! We’re just getting started!)
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