Kaizen in Action: 8 Types of Micro-Commitments and How You Can Use Them in Your Sales Process to Increase Conversions
By Ryan Levesque

As I used the science of Kaizen to build my business, I also realized how this simple strategy applies to sales and marketing …

Which led me to a MAJOR epiphany as well as the creation of The ASK Method®.

Sometimes the biggest successes happen not by thinking bigger, but by thinking smaller.

To take my first business from $0 to $25,000/year in 18 months, I forgot about my big goals, gave up on visualizations, and stopped giving myself pep-talks.

Instead, I started asking myself tiny, minuscule questions, like:

“What’s ONE thing I can do in my business that will make me an extra $500 this month?”

And …

“What’s one thing I can I do that will generate ONE additional sale per day?”

Instead of thinking big, I began to think very, very small …

These small numbers were the sort of thing I could actually get my head around.

And shifting my thinking to $500 in extra monthly revenue and one additional sale per day also allowed me to “seek the small improvements, one day at a time.”

Once I began seeking those small improvements instead of huge leaps, I started making SIGNIFICANT progress in my business.

There’s a quote by Mark Twain scribbled on the whiteboard in my office that says the following:

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started. And the secret to getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks and starting on the first one.”

This is Kaizen in a nutshell, and Twain understood the “secret” behind it.

Now, I used Kaizen to help me make progress when I was first starting my business …

Including the “hack” that can get you unstuck no matter where you are in your business: “Seek the small improvements one day at a time.”

Today, I want to dive deeper into this idea …

Your brain perceives ANY kind of change as a threat, activating your “fight or flight” response …

Now let’s see how we can tiptoe around this in a creative way.

How to Influence Your Customers with Kaizen

This marketing epiphany came to me as I was standing in the coffee aisle at the grocery store, deciding which brand of coffee to buy.

“What’s so hard about buying coffee?” you might ask.

Well, the first coffee I remember drinking was the giant red can, the Buick of coffees, the coffee that my parents drank: Folgers at $3.99/lb.

Since it’s what I grew up with, Folgers started out as my coffee of choice by default.

Eventually, once there was a Starbucks on every corner, I began seeing their ground coffee in the store, and on a whim, I gave it a try at the sale price of $5.99/lb.

Weeks later, it went back up to the regular price of $8.99/lb., but by then I was hooked on Starbucks, whether I liked it or not.

A few years later, as part of a concerted effort to eat healthier, my wife and I switched to certified organic and pesticide free coffee at the hefty price tag of $10.99/lb.

And standing in that aisle at Whole Foods, debating between two different certified-organic, fair-trade, boutique-brand varieties at a price of $12.99/lb. and $13.99/lb. respectively …

Suddenly it hit me:

“HOW did I go from buying the big red can at $3.99/lb to trying to decide between fair-trade organic coffee at $13.99/lb?”

I never would have made that leap directly … it’s TOO BIG of a price jump.

But each incremental decision over the years was a small enough price increase that it seemed like “no big deal.”

And I was able to accept paying more and more for coffee without setting off any of my internal (amygdala-controlled) warning signals.

This is true, not just for coffee, but for any kind of purchase or buying decision … and you can leverage this concept in your marketing on a practical level in a number of ways.

By now you’ve probably heard me mention “Micro-Commitments,” which is how you influence people to complete your quiz, one question at a time.

However, Micro-Commitments can come into play at EVERY stage of the sales process.

And today I want to talk about some other ways you can use the concept of Micro-Commitments in your marketing.

8 Ways to Use “Micro-Commitments” in Your Sales Process

The key to this concept is looking at any point in your sales process where you are asking someone to take too big of a leap …

Basically, any step that is potentially scary. From there, figure out how to break it down into smaller steps.

I’d like to cover eight different ways you can “chunk down” or add another smaller step in order to reduce buying friction and avoid “scaring off” your prospects.

In fact, I bet you may be using several of these already … and that’s great!

The more you are aware of WHY and HOW Micro-Commitments work, the more effectively you can use them.

Are you ready to dive in?

OK, here it goes:

Now, these eight micro-commitment strategies are a good starting point, but always remember the #1 goal:

“HOW can I seamlessly move my prospects and customers through the sales process by breaking it down into much smaller steps?”

Or in other words …

“Am I losing people along the way by asking them to take a step that’s too big or threatening?”

Editor’s Note: This post shared with permission courtesy of Ryan Levesque at askmethod.com. It was also previously published in the June 2018 issue of Barefoot Writer. To read more from fellow Barefoot Writers be sure to check out The Barefoot Writer's Club.