There are many firms and manufacturers that give out free sports tickets, take their customers on hunting and fishing tips, or arrange luxurious dinners and cocktail parties. It’s considered a prize for top salespeople to accompany their customers to these events.
Providing value should be your bottom line, not distracting customers with flashy rewards or developing psychic debt because you took them on a cruise.
There needs to be a balance and some sort of exchange that sustains both parties. I don’t believe in extravagent customer giveaways.
That said, I have presented for several road shows where my clients’ prospects were invited to a nice location where we provided relevant education to attendees. I suppose that might seem like a vacation for some because my client who is the training sponsor covered most if not all of the tuition, hotel, meals, and maybe even the cost of something extracurricular like an off-campus event for social networking. However, the point was not to bribe someone with a vacation. It was to provide a safe environment for prospects to focus on and appreciate the value my training host was bringing to the table.
It is true that the decision to buy is made by a human being, not a title or a corporation. It’s important to have quality time with your prospects so that you can get a less varnished view of what really motivates them emotionally… what they find gratifying… what their values are… and what they find most in need of improvement in their daily work life. Remember, most people make emotional decisions first and then justify the financially. Observing your prospect in a relaxed, non-business setting will likely give you valuable insights into how you could reframe your offerings so they resonate with what your prospect truly values. And listening carefully to what they say and how they say it will give you much more insight than you might glean during a formal 60-minute PowerPoint presentation in their office.
