Sales:
Know your customer, know your customer, know your customer. Three very important rules of business. But let me ask you this: How well do your customers know YOU?
Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, asked himself this significant question several decades ago. His answer: employee nametags. So, he rolled out an initiative that required all of his employees to wear badges, the purpose of which was to “help the customers get to know the people they bought from.”
But helping customers “get to know you” isn’t just about names, it’s about information. In other words, it’s about self- disclosure, which is the process of revealing your personal information to another.
This process starts with a small piece of information, i.e., your name. Then, as the relationship develops, it progresses into more intimate territory with the sharing of opinions, preferences and experiences.
What’s more, because of its reciprocal nature, self-disclosure has incredible power. It creates comfort, establishes affinity, helps discover the CPI (Common Point of Interest) and builds trust between you and your customers.
A very popular furniture store in London run by a family took this to a new level. You couldn’t step five feet into their store without seeing pictures of their family. The walls donned clippings from nostalgic newspaper articles and various personal memorabilia that brought the store to life!
As a result, shoppers who walked in the door felt like they personally knew the owners. Engaging conversations about children, families and growing up in London were frequent among the customers.
And, the emotional connection sparked by these interactions helped the customers feel more comfortable while shopping – which ultimately secured their loyalty.
Not to mention, self-disclosure in reality helps YOU get to know your customers better as well! Here’s another case in point. A friend of my cousin,James,is a manager in a restaurant. He is a master of using self-disclosure to create relationships with patrons.
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