If you have kids or have a close friend or relative who does, you probably know that a young person needs to hear a request multiple times to remember it or to have it “sink in”. Why is that? Well, a young one has so many things in their world that are important to them, they probably have no idea why something is important to you, and subconsciously tune it out. You may have even said something like “..I have told you a thousand times …”, right?
Similarly, people who study advertising have said that it takes many times for the average person to see an ad for them to act on it, or to truly think about it and it may go something like this:
- The first 4 times you see an advertisement, you hardly notice it.
- The fifth time you see it, you read it.
- The 6th – 8th times it appears, it starts to bother you.
- By the 9th time, you start to wonder if there’s something to it..
- Views 10-12 prompt you to casually think about it. Maybe you ask a friend about it or do a quick scan through their website.
- By the 13th time you see an advertisement, the product or service might be worth something.
- In views 14-19 you slowly convince yourself to make a purchase and start saving for it.
- By the 20th time you see the same advertisement, you are sold.
Data provided by Red Crow Marketing
What is my point with all this? Well, you as a Kitchen and Bath designer are reviewing so much information with your client that it is nearly impossible for them to remember all that you are saying, especially since most of the time, the project or process is something they have never been involved with before. Your client will remember the things you say that are only important to them, not necessarily the things that are important for you to have them remember.
If there are critical elements to the project that your client must be aware of, there are only two things you can do to help your client to remember them:
- Put it in Writing
- Repeat, Repeat, Repeat.
Then when you are done, Repeat it… AGAIN!
I am sure that you have had clients that did not remember some very important things about their project even when you HAVE repeated them. This has been confirmed by many others in our industry.
Obviously, there are many things to review when there is a large project in the works, and it is important that your client is aware of some very important things, but expecting them to remember what you have said when you have been feeding them information with a firehose for the last 30 minutes just is not realistic. They have never done this before, or, most likely, not with you, so this is all new to them.
Treat them as though they are a 5-year-old, or like you are an advertisement. If you want them to understand the importance of an instruction, or a procedure, repeat, repeat, repeat,…
then repeat some more.
What do YOU do to be sure your client remembers what you say? Tell me in the comments below!
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Tags: #design, #kitchens, #nkba, #selling