Use Illustrations to Teach Your Customers

All salesmen are problem solvers.

People don’t buy products or services for the sake of it – they want a specific problem solved. Your customers don’t buy carpet cleaning because they want to watch you clean for entertainment. They want to remove the embarrassment they feel when friends visit and notice the stains on their carpets. Or they want to feel pride in their homes. Or make their carpets safer for their grandchildren.

Your objective is to ask "How can you help this person get what she wants through the use of your service?"

It’s always good to have a structure sales approach, as though everything is choreographed. Nothing happens by chance, just like actors on stage. This includes educating them as to what is possible.

There are two old adages when it comes to selling:

1. The more you tell, the more you sell
2. The more you teach, the more you’ll reach

Let’s deal with the Point 2 and consider an important method of educating our customers...using illustrations.

Why are illustrations so powerful?

It’s because they cause people to think about a subject, perhaps in a way that they've not before. Also they make it easier to remember the point. And at times they can powerfully overcome a preconceived idea that may simply be wrong.

For example, how often do homeowners say to you that they have put off cleaning their carpets because they have heard that they get dirty very quickly afterwards? It’s a persistent idea that stems from shampooing methods of over 40 years ago! Yet with modern cleaning solutions and correct methods, this is no longer a problem.

So instead of saying that rapid re-soiling is no longer a problem these days, why not illustrate the difference between shampooing and extraction cleaning?

“Imagine washing your hair but not rinsing. What would you look like after a few weeks?” is far more powerful. “So modern rinsing techniques eliminate this problem.”

How about the need to vacuum a carpet before wet cleaning (which our competitors don’t do)? You could tell them that about 79% of soil in a carpet is ‘dry’ and will vacuum out. Or you could say “Imagine having flour on your hands and then wetting them. You’re left with a sticky mess. That’s why it’s far more effective to remove dry soil first”

And why do you agitate traffic lane cleaners? Well, you could explain all about the TACT pie chart (temperature, agitation, chemical, time). Or you could say “you know how when you have very dirty plates in the washing up bowl, it’s far more effective to use a brush or scourer. Otherwise the dirt is still there”

Extraction cleaning versus bonnet methods?... “Imagine having a shower versus just using a flannel to wash”

And so on.

It’s easy to see that a good illustration makes the point far more powerfully than a simple statement of fact, especially if we’re able to paint a vivid mental image.