Children do not like receiving socks for Christmas, but children everywhere will wake up Christmas morning to find neatly wrapped pairs of socks waiting for them under the Christmas tree this year, next year, and for many years to come. They open up their gift and force a crooked, confused smile.
As these children grow up, develop careers, and discover how difficult it is to wake up before the rest of the family and find a pair of matching black socks in the dark of the morning, they develop a desire for socks.
Santa Claus’ nemesis is the sock swiper, and for the other 364 days of the year, our socks are silently stolen somewhere between the laundry basket and the sock drawer. For this reason, I am asking Santa Claus to bring me more black socks this Christmas.
Why is it that children do not want socks for Christmas, but adults engaged in a battle against the sock swiper love to receive socks for Christmas? Simple. People desire different things.
Desire is easy to understand if you’re thinking about your own desires, but desire can be tricky when you’re trying to understand how it impacts your business.
See, desire cannot be manufactured; it must exist already. As business professionals, we understand what we sell, we understand how our products and solutions can help our customers, and we understand all of the reasons why our customers should want our stuff. However, if there is no existing desire in the hearts and minds of those who can buy our stuff, then there is nothing we can do to create this desire.
We do not take aspirin because we have a relationship with our pharmacist; we take an aspirin because we have a headache and we believe it will relieve our pain.
As you give and receive gifts this Christmas, watch people’s faces as they open their gifts and listen to the words spoken after they receive their gift. Yes, you can learn about desire this year as you watch people interact with their gifts, and you can apply what you learn to your business as you roll into the new year.
When you are watching people open gifts, watch both the receiver and the giver. Which person is more excited about the gift? Does the giver of the gift immediately try and explain the gift to its recipient? Are they trying to explain what it does, how it improves their life, and why they really will enjoy the gift?
This “explaining the gift” exercise can be seen everyday in business. Business professionals, with genuine enthusiasm and passion, try and explain how powerful their products and solutions are, how much money can be saved, and how much productivity could be gained. However, unless the desire was already inside of the customer’s head, these passionate explanations fall upon deaf ears.
So, what do you do if you have a product that you know people want? You need to be able to find those people – the people with an existing desire.
People with an existing desire can be reached; you have the ability to connect with them. All business transactions occur when a connection is made – a connection between an existing desire and its corresponding solution.
You, as a business professional, have that corresponding solution; this is the gift that you give your customers. Sure, you can amplify their desires as you passionately explain your solutions, but your efforts will prove futile if you’re efforts are spent trying to create new behaviors and solving problems that people do not understand that they have.
Stop focusing on who should want to buy your stuff, and you’ll stop giving children socks for Christmas. Yes, there are people out there that are hoping to receive black socks for Christmas, and they are waiting for you with their checkbooks at-the-ready. You just need to find them. Custom Fuzzy Socks