People don’t buy pest control. They buy this instead
******This is the First of a Two Part Series on Selling with Emotion + Logic as a PCO.******
Nobody actually buys pest control services.
Which sounds weird, right?
Instead, they buy the benefit. The outcome.
The transformation.
And you may have heard that before – but I want to take it a step further, and say the benefit isn’t actually enough.
It’s the emotion of that benefit.
Let me explain.
About a year ago I finally bought a toaster (we had been using the oven to save counter space).
I didn’t buy the toaster for its metal exterior and four slots.
I bought it because it transformed my bread into crispy pieces of delightfulness.
And because it saved me time (no more burnt toast that had to be re-toasted).
The time savings is the benefit.
But, it’s the emotion of that time savings that is the much deeper benefit.
It left me more calm, cool and collected in the mornings, instead of freaking out because the smoke detector was going off because CRAP, I FORGOT ABOUT THE BREAD UNDER THE BROILER!
It gave me the time to answer emails while eating breakfast, because my kids could put their own bread in the toaster rather than relying on me to take the toast out of the oven with tongs.
I can honestly say, and this sounds stupid, that buying that toaster was one of the best decisions of my adult life in 2018.
It would be too weird to say that this toaster changed my life – but man, the more I write about it, the more grateful I am for the guy who invented the toaster.
And if I can get this excited about a stupid toaster?
Think about how excited people could get about your pest control business, and the real benefits it could have in their home, business, and life.
How to use the same technique I just described in your pest control business:
First, remember that people don’t buy your services – be that a quarterly service, a one-off treatment, or a pest-specific treatment for bed bugs, cockroaches, or armadillo removal.
They buy the benefit.
The outcome.
How it makes them feel.
So when you sit down to write a social media post, Facebook ad, or even the about page on your pest control website?
LEAD with the benefit and the coinciding emotion.
Sure, they might go from having spiders to not having spiders. Having termites to not having termites. Having mice to not having mice.
But you must dig deeper, into the emotion of it all.
Get into the mind of your potential clients.
And, be as detailed and specific as possible.
“After the spiders are gone, you’ll sleep better” is a start.
But this is better:
“After the spiders are gone, you won’t have anxiety going down into the laundry room. You won’t have a small panic in the shower because there’s a spider dangling above you. And you won’t have a mini freakout because it sounds like someone is getting murdered upstairs but it’s just your three children screaming and running away from a newborn spider (where there’s one, there’s usually more).”
And you could clearly break the above statement up into three separate social media posts, advertisements, or “benefit nuggets” on your website.
But you get the point.
Stop selling just pest control services alone.
Start selling the benefit, and the deeper emotion that comes along with that benefit (where the real gold is).
By the way – that paragraph of emotions & benefits comes straight from my own experience of spiders, so I’m not just making up the benefits and emotions here.
And to go even deeper (and not sound like such a sissy):
Even though I KNOW those spiders aren’t going to harm me or my children, I KNOW that spider is likely not venomous, I KNOW 12.3 million spiders aren’t going to come crawling from beneath the floorboards in our unfinished basement…
…my emotions take over.
And emotions win over logic almost every time.
The same goes for selling and marketing to customers.
Emotions beat logic (yes, even when you’re selling to men)…
…yet people want to justify their decisions with logic, too (which can cure buyers remorse and get a spouse or business partner on-board with the purchase).
