Get The Green Light From Prospects

(By Gil Gerretsen) There was once a party and dating strategy that suggested using traffic light colors to communicate your status. Wear red if you are in a relationship, yellow if you are unsure or in an open relationship, and green if you are single and unattached. I haven’t heard about that method much anymore, but then I’m happily married and really don’t need to care about it. However, the green, yellow, red way of thinking can be a great way of evaluating prospects and customers.

Think of these colors in terms of people’s behavior. Do you want to be closer to them or further away because of their actions? Are their words and action red, yellow or green? How about flipping the equation? Do your prospects and customers want to be closer to you, or further away, because of YOUR behaviors? Are your words and behaviors red, yellow, or green?

Consider this. Marketing is the art of building new relationships. Sales is the art of closing the deal on those relationships. Red light people never get to the deal. Yellow light people exhibit a lot of caution. They’re not ready yet. Green light people want to move into your orbit and want you to move into theirs.

Do people change colors? Of course. But misreading their color signals can have undesirable consequences.

Red light people aren’t in the market right now. Stop honking your horn trying to get their color to change. Perhaps in time, they will be ready, but not now.

Yellow light people are unsure or uncertain. They’re telling you to slow down. They could be moving toward green, but the normal tendency is to go from yellow to red. They’re thinking more about stopping the relationship than going to green. However, sometimes, they decide to go the other way. If they see there’s no other traffic to worry about, then they may feel more comfortable moving through the intersection. Just make sure you don’t do anything to cause them to stomp on their brakes.

Green light people have decided they like what they see. They want more. However, they want to stay in the driver’s seat. If you try to take over, or assume too much, they’ll see a yellow or red light at the next intersection. If that happens, green light people who change to yellow or red rarely go back to green. They are more likely to make a turn and head in another direction.

There’s another important side to this model as well. You’ve got to be the green light person to others. You can’t be insecure about your message and value because insecure people will never inspire secure people. Take a look at the things you do. Are you sending the right green light signals? Are there any yellow light or red light signals showing up, either immediately of on the horizon?

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