Customers in my area are different - What do I do?

“My Customers Are Different—They Only Want the Cheapest Price. What Do I Do?”

It’s easy to blame the market. Harder to examine the process.

In today’s Question of the Day, I challenge the idea that certain regions are just “price-driven” and explain why customer stereotypes don’t hold up.

In this episode, we cover:

•  Why customers—regardless of location—tend to want the same core things
•  How a strong, consistent sales process delivers on those expectations 
•  What actually does change: how customers prefer to receive information
•  Why you shouldn’t change your process—only how you communicate it

If you’ve been telling yourself, “It’s just my area,” this episode will push you to rethink that—and refocus on what you can control to win more opportunities.

Have a Question? - Submit your questions to chrish@nexstarnetwork.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to the question of the day. Today's question is from JD, and JD says, People in our area are different. They don't buy into the process and they don't want to be sold. They just want the cheapest price. What do we do? That's a great question. Thank you for submitting that question. I agree. I don't want to be sold either. I don't know anybody who does want to be sold. And cheapest price, well, I mean, nobody wants to pay more for something than they should. I would agree with that as well. But what is what does cheapest price mean? Because there's certain things that customers want and need. And so based off that, there's a price that equals that value you're getting. But customers, yeah, they don't want to spend a dime over what that value is. So it's more the perceived value in their mind. Because if I said, here's a product and I pointed at 10 people and I said, tell me what the cheapest price is, all 10 of those people are going to say a different price because their value for that item is different. The value that they see is different. And so if we're talking about the trades here, and we're probably talking about like big ticket items, there's a perceived value. And that's that's our job to go into that home and build that value because price is only an issue in the absence of value. Now, there are, I mean, there are customers that they are going to shop around until they get the cheapest price. That that is going to happen, right? And so what we want to look at is how often is that going to happen. And there's a number of studies you can look at. Um, some studies studies say about 10% of customers are simply going to pick the cheapest price for whatever that item is, regardless of what else it does, right? There's some studies that get more to 15 to 17%. Um, depending on what study you're looking at. Let's just say between 10 and 17% of customers are simply gonna shop around for the cheapest price, and they don't care about anything like comfort or features or efficiency or anything like that, right? So, okay, 10 to 17%, that's not gonna be our customers then. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Here's what I want to pick on. I guess what I want to pick on is the first thing you said is people in our area are different. I wonder what that means. And I'd love to have a conversation about that. Of people in our area are different. Because I I do a lot of coaching calls and I talk with people all over the country, and and I do hear that from different areas of the country. Like, like I hear, I hear people in New York are aggressive. Hey, I'm walking in, you know, like the movies, right? Like people in New York are aggressive. I've heard that Midwesterners, they're too nice. They're too nice. I've also heard Midwesterners are are passive aggressive, right? Like that that that Minnesota nice, it could be actually passive aggressive, like they're nice to your face, but then behind your back, watch out, right? I've heard Southerners, they want to talk forever. Like a sales call there might take actually seven hours. Chattiest customer and the chattiest salesperson, seven hours long. This is my favorite, and I hear this everywhere. You know, Chris, I don't know if you know this, but we're in a highly competitive market. I honestly I don't know anyone who isn't in a highly competitive market. And so I would pose this question back, right? And I I bring all these up to poke fun a little bit, but I've heard all of these, right? Like, but I pose this question back. Are customers actually different? Or are we labeling what we don't understand? And so think about it like this. We lean on these regional labels of people in our area do X, Y, and Z. Is it is it easier to pass the blame in that direction, or is it because it's hard to examine skill gaps, right? To actually look at where the opportunities are at, and then build upon those opportunities. Because we the other question I would ask is like, are we having one or two experiences? And then based out of that, we make the rule, right? Like I had one aggressive customer in New York, and now I think all New Yorkers are aggressive. Or I saw one movie that said they're aggressive. Because I I've visited companies in New York, I visited uh in Brooklyn specifically, and honestly, they were the nicest customers I think I've ever encountered. Like they were just good people. I didn't see a single one of them that was aggressive, like they were just amazing, kind, good people. Driving is a little different in Brooklyn, like everybody's got scuffed up bumpers because there's nowhere to park. Double parking, that thing, like that like blew my mind. But but like the people, they're they're fantastic, right? In the Midwest, we're labeled as as nice or passive aggressive. I've seen people in the Midwest that are are up front and say specifically what they want and and need, right? And yes, I've been in the South, and that's seven-hour call. That was a real thing. I rode along on a call one time that was seven hours. Seven hours. And it went something like this. We it it was the chattiest salesperson with the chattiest customer ever, and that combined equaled a seven-hour call. And and there was a husband and wife there, and the husband was there for about an hour and a half, which would have been a cue for me to wrap this up in an hour and a half, but we didn't, and then it turned into a one-lager situation where the husband wasn't there anymore, but then we found out the husband was coming back, and so then it got stretched out for the husband to come back. And I kid you not, this husband walked in and he was like, Why are you still here? Like, I can't believe you guys are still here. He walked in, said, I want that option, call was over, like it was done, right? Like, and but but of all the call calls I've ran in the south, that's the only one that went seven hours. And so, based on that, am I turning one or two experiences into the rule? So we we create this story of like, well, that's just how people are here, because it's harder to dig in and find the opportunities in our own skill, in our own process. Now, here's something I would say is true for customers everywhere. I don't care where you're at, your customers want respect. That's true of everywhere. Your customers want clarity and transparency. I would say that's true of everywhere. Your customers want confidence in their decision, confidence that they are making the right decision, whatever that decision is. Customers want that ability to make that decision, that they have a number of options, not too many options, that it gets confusing, but they have options so that they're choosing rather than being sold to. That would be true of everyone. Customers want to not feel taken advantage of, that they're getting good value. Regardless of the money they spent, they're getting good value in return. And and most of all, customers just want to feel heard, they want to feel understood because they have questions and concerns, and sometimes they don't even bring those up. Sometimes we have to kind of peel back the layers and get to that. But they have questions and concerns and and they want to be heard and understood. These are all things customers everywhere want. I don't care where you're located, this is what a process delivers. We should have a process that delivers on these things. And so I I don't I can't imagine a region where customers wouldn't want these things. Now, are there different communication styles? Yes, but I don't know that it's tied to a regional. There's direct and indirect people. There's people that make fast decisions, and there's people that process slower. There's people that need proof before making a decision, and there's people that are impulsive. These are all personality differences, yes. And but sales, sales is executing a process, but also sales is being a bit of a psychologist. And so there's personality differences, but that doesn't mean they should get a different experience. And we definitely shouldn't change it based on our geography. And so here's what I would challenge you to do: replace your assumptions with observations. You're observing the customer in front of you. Are they direct, are they indirect? Do they make fast decisions or do they make slow decisions? Do they need proof or are they just moving along in the process, right? Like, so observe these kinds of things. How fast are they talking? Match that speed. If they're talking really fast and you're talking really slow, that's going to frustrate them. Customers want to buy from somebody like them. And vice versa. If they're talking really slow and you're talking really fast, they're going to feel like it's information overload. Observe your customer. Observe how they ask questions and what questions they ask. Observe their body language. Things you're going to want to listen for while you're observing. Decision signals. How and when do they make decisions? Listen for concerns that will manifest in those questions. What concerns do they have? What questions do they have? Objections. What problems are there going to be in moving forward? And then you want to match this. So all of these things you're observing, you want to match. You're not changing your process, you're changing how you present this information to a customer. So you're executing a process, but you're a bit of a psychologist and just giving them information in the way that they want to receive information. So a fast customer, tighten up your presentation. An analytical customer, slow down, add detail. Relationship driven, spend time building that relationship. But you're still executing the process, the same process, every customer, every time. What changes is the delivery of that process. If I have a customer who makes decisions quickly and speaks fast, I better get to it. I better be very direct. I'm still delivering the same process, the same presentation, the same options, but I'm getting to it. If I have a customer that is relationship driven, I'm gonna have to go slower and make sure that I'm fostering that relationship. I had a customer one time that she was just all about fun. She did not want to talk about her HVAC system at all. She had a cracked heat exchanger, it had been tagged, and she did not want to talk about this, even though she needed to because winter was coming up, right? And she knew she needed to, but she she just did not want to focus on that right there. She was much more concerned about other things, right? She had Halloween decorations in the crawl space of her house and she couldn't get to that, right? And so we talked about that for a while. And eventually I ended up crawling into the crawl space and dragging out all the Halloween decorations. And and then she's pulling out the Halloween decorations and she found this dancing skeleton, and she wanted to dance to the skeleton. She was dancing in her living room. And guess what? I ended up dancing in the living room with this older lady because she'd much rather focus on that. But I had to do that in that moment because I needed to foster that relationship. I needed to make that connection with that customer. We did eventually start talking about the problem at hand, start talking about the solution, the options. We presented options, she picked an option, we move forward. It took longer to get there, but had I been direct, we never would have got there if I wouldn't have fostered that relationship. And so you have to, you have to observe your customers. Remove all the regionalism. Customers want particular things. They want respect, they want clarity and transparency, they want to be confident in the decision they're making. They don't want to be taken advantage of and they want to be heard. They want to be understood. And we need to deliver in that manner. Fun little antidote to that story I just shared, the customer with the Halloween decorations. In fact, at the end of the presentation, we asked. There was a note uh when we ran the call that said she only had 30 minutes, and this call went way past 30 minutes. And we asked about that, and she said, Oh, I just said that in case I didn't like you. Very relationship driven. And obviously, she loved us, but it was all because we focused on building that relationship. So move past these regionalisms. Customers want certain things. Your process has to deliver those things. The only thing that changes is the delivery based on how your customer wants to receive information. So key points. Regional stereotypes are a crutch, not a strategy. Customers are far more similar than they are different. And your adaptability to give them information, how they want information, is key to your success. Not changing the process, changing how you deliver that information. Same process, but delivering it in the way that the customer wants that information. So here's my challenge to you. My challenge to you. Go out, execute a sales call, and then ask yourself this question. Did I give the customer the information in the way that they wanted? And did I still execute the process? And now I would also like to add, use a scorecard. You should have a defined process. You should have a scorecard to your process. Look to that scorecard to answer that question. Did I actually deliver the process? And then informally, did I deliver it in the way that the customer wanted? That's today's question of the day. If you're enjoying question of the day, follow, share, give a reading. Question of the day is on major streaming platforms. If you have a question, reach out to me either on social media or email. Both are going to be listed below in the show description. Let's get your question answered. And if you're a next star member, schedule a call with me and let's get this addressed one on one. Let's get very specific to your situation. I'm Coach Chris. We'll see you tomorrow.