Curious and interested often come dressed to the party in similar outfits. On the surface, they look exactly the same. They are bright, shiny, full of energy, and smile a lot. But take a closer look and you will see that beyond the superficial similarities, these two characters are not much alike at all. Learning how to spot the differences between them takes skill, but once mastered can save anyone in the business of converting leads into sales a lot of time, money, and emotional energy.

How to Tell Between the Interested vs. Merely Curious

In any business, profits are driven by customers willing to part with their hard-earned cash for your company’s products or services. If you’ve been in business longer than a week, you know first hand how challenging this part of building a business can be.

This is why learning to discern between the curious and the interested is to any entrepreneur’s benefit. Here’s how to tell the difference beyond the smile, the playful banter, and the friendliness. While both the curious and the interested will ask questions, the true difference between them is in what’s behind the questions they ask. Learn to recognize this difference and watch what happens to your sales.

Curious wants to learn about something for the sake of learning, amusement, or entertainment. This impulse is often grounded in whimsy, not intention. It comes early in the process of making any kind of decision. Curious people are not primed to buy, and take a lot more time to get them to the interested stage (if they even get there at all).

You: How can I help you?
Curious: I was wondering what this gizmo-gadget was all about?

Interested wants to know more about something for intentional reasons, often tied to some kind of personal gain, emotionally or financially. Interested is purpose-driven and is long past the curious phase, ready to make a decision. It is a conscious state of being, and an ideal customer-state as interested people often buy more for their own reasons rather than because a marketer or sales person had to work them through a long process to get them to the buying stage (all about the sales person).

You: How can I help you?
Interested: I understand this gizmo-gadget works really well for whatever-current-problem-I’m-having. What else can you tell me about it?

Subtle but profound difference. The key is intention.

Get that, and your business changes forever.