Raymond Miles, a professor at UCLA, tells us all that we are now entering the Age of Innovation. In stark contrast to our industrial past where the focus in manufacturing was on hiring a large group of workers with similar skills to turn out the largest possible number of similar products for the mass consumers, we've reached the other end of the continuum. Now the individually skilled worker is being asked to work as a team with other uniquely skilled workers to turn out individualized products for a specific niche market, or even a specific individual!
A similar viewpoint is made by Peppers and Rogers, the authors of The One-to-One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time. The one-to-one marketer, perhaps in partnership with others, uses data and the Internet to sell one customer at a time as many products and services as possible. Ultimately, the marketer is selling a relationship and a process which may be capable of meeting very diverse individual customer needs. This approach fits with today's demographics and customers' increasing desire for customization of selling processes to their uniqueness. Just as consumers want more options in the car they buy, in the range of automobile makers, colors and models they can select, they want more options in how they're sold.
The Age of Innovation escalates the need to get better at designing and delivering our message to and for one person and one situation, whether we're attempting to market, advertise or sell! There isn't one right way to deliver a message to everyone. A salesman I spoke to recently commented that he had always been very successful using flattery and compliments with female customers, but he had noticed recently that his comments were getting a chilly reception. Maybe times and expectations have changed, maybe his female customers are coming from a different niche, or have new preferences, but the "one style fits all" approach clearly isn't working for him anymore.
Customizing your sales approach takes more time, effort and energy than following your own inclinations or a rote system, but it certainly is more productive. It's the difference between firing without aiming and slowly getting ready, gathering information, carefully aiming your message and then delivering the customized message. When you aim carefully you'll hit 99 out of 100 times, whether you're customizing your message to the gender, occupation, personality, or just plain preferences of your customer.
In our high-tech world, you also need to figure out what medium is best to communicate your customized, individualized message. Perhaps it's face-to-face. Maybe it's voice-mail or e-mail. Maybe it's in written format. That decision, as well as decisions about the content of your message and the timing of the medium with the message, all depend primarily on the nature of the individual audience, rather than on the nature of you!
I'm always more comfortable with face-to-face conversations when I'm attempting to influence clients, but many of my potential clients aren't. Who needs to adapt? Me, of course. As a potential customer and as a woman, I'm more comfortable with written information, either through direct mail or e-mail, as an initial introduction to a product, service or salesperson.
Consider improving the customization of your sales communication so you can be the one-to-one communicator. One-to-one communication fits for personal relationships as well as for managing, networking, influencing, advertising, marketing or selling in the world of work!
Judith Tingley is a psychologist and business consultant. She has served on BMW's Market Advisory Council as well as provided consulting services to a broad variety of businesses and industries. She is the author of Genderflex: Men and Women Speaking Each Other's Language at Work (AMACOM, 1994) and co-author of Gendersell : Selling to the Opposite Sex, to be published by Simon and Schuster. If you have specific questions or require more information about this subject, please check the appropriate box on the reader response form on page 3.