Hi guys, did the hook work?

Good.

It's 4;30 am in Hong Kong; I am jet lagged, semi-delirous, and dropping ALPHA on sales.

Sales.

The sales process is adjudicated by a few main factors that inevitably determine its outcome. These factors relate specifically to sales chemistry and do not include secondary factors like lobbying, friendly introductions, or any other biases.

1.) Perceived tangible value & problem-solving.

What the client thinks the product will provide for them or their company.

Can they justify spending $x amount of x product if Y is the outcome?

When meeting with potential prospects, the pitch needs to present the key value props and how they accommodate the client.

You can either do one of two things you can:

• Save the client time (the value here is that they can focus on other value-generating aspects that would overcome the cost of what you are selling).

• Make the client money. The ROI of the product in itself is good enough to justify a swift purchase.

2.) Cost relative to spending.

As a service provider, you will inevitably encounter three types of people.

a.) People who can easily afford your service.

b.) People who CAN afford your service but will be incessantly precarious

c.) People who cant afford your service.

When starting, you, of course, start with C.) and work your way up the ladder until you are strictly dealing with a.) a client who possesses a worth that makes the cost of your service seem meaningless.

When I first started, I had to service c.) clients for free (obviously, they couldn’t afford it, lol) to gain market acceptance and to develop case studies.

However, as the company progressed and gained notoriety, we had more dictation over the type of clients we wanted. And I can say without a doubt that b.) is the most annoying, and Arcadia will try to avoid them at all costs.

A client who is incredibly precarious always leads to issues, and usually, the issues they find are a result of their own actions. Therefore, the client creates the problem, validates the problem by being narcissistic, and then tries to solve it by inevitably eradicating the service provider.

Sure, an argument is okay, and maybe you can win at the end of the day, but once someone is convinced of something, they have confirmation bias. They will be a FOE in grapevine marketing and will hurt any attempt to build good merit and notoriety in the space.

Ultimately, how others speak of you, UNLESS BLATANTLY FALSE, will determine the success of your company.

3. Perceived likelihood of achieving the goal.

Arcadia needs to do a better job of showcasing its case studies. The way that I view it is the following:

Imagine there are millions of $ worth of gold sitting on the moon. 

You want to get that gold, and it belongs to whoever gets their first.

Objective: Get the gold.

ROI: Spend $x amount and get $millions worth of gold.

How: A rocket ship.

As an agency, you are the rocket ship. You have to put yourself in the client's shoes.

If they pay you $x, can they get $y in gold? 

Can you even get them to the moon? What are the odds?

Thats why the perceived likelihood of achievement is so powerful.

Who is the person going to hire? SpaceX? Who has done it 1 thousand times safely, or the new cheap company that can do it for half the cost but has had half of their flights fail?

OBVIOUSLY the former. It is the same with clients; they want to pay a premium; on the contrary, if they don't want to pay a premium for safe travel, then you should not want them as clients in the first place.

BUT clients aren’t done. Most of them are slightly egocentric and want to do it in style. Clients would rather have a gold rocket ship than one made of brick because of how it affects their perception.

Clients will look at previous case studies and recent failures; they will ask their network to validate your claims. Just like buying an expensive car, they will evaluate every aspect they can before making a decision, so it’s your job to subconsciously ensure them every step of the way.

BONUS: Sales is all psychology.

It’s all a game.

It is about rendering a matrix that is conducive to the ultimate outcome and then purchasing whatever you are selling.

Clients and those who might buy your service operate on a few main psychological factors:

Urgency/pressing problem

During the sales process, you need to convince them that a.) they are facing a massive existential crisis that needs to be solved immediately and that b.) you are the only person who can solve it.

Exclusivity 

People LOVE what they cant have; make your service seem exquisite. Add a waitlist, NEVER pitch from a position of desperation, and create a sense that not many can access what you are offering. 

This isn't only driven by making your service hard to obtain but also by granting perceived value to those who have OBTAINED It.

Ex: “Oh wow, XYZ hired Arcadia. I really want to be like XYZ, so Arcadia must be the way I can be like them.

Gratification

Imagine the feeling when you walk out of a store with a new car, haircut, or purchase. YOU FEEL GOOD. 

Clients want to feel like a badass; they want to feel contrarian; for some reason, going against the notion induces some aspect of serotonin that is hard to achieve. 

They want to feel like they are accessing something that should be illegal, that gives them superpowers, and that they are now a part of the cabal.

Unfortunately, it is rooted in human nature to show off, and getting clients the perspective that obtaining your product is the ULTIMATE flex, is a killer.