You have heard the phrase "it's not what you know that matters, rather who you know". I would take that a step further . . . it's who knows you.
For example:
- 85% of job openings are filled by networks of people that already knew the candidate.
- For established businesses, over 80% of sales come from existing customers.
- And the remainder comes from NEW business that is driven by referrals or word of mouth.
Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all success, all achievement, in real life begins . . . "you will be in 5 years what you are today except for the books you read and the people you meet" - Charlie Jones
Peter Drucker once said "businesses exist for only one reason - to acquire & retain customers". Which begs the question, how do we acquire & retain more customers? The simple answer is to give them what they want.
HR Chally has surveyed over 80,000 B2B customers and asked them "why do you buy from the suppliers you actually buy from?" Chally was able to place all the answers into 1 of 4 buckets:
Price - 18%
Product - 21%
Total Solution - 22%
Relationship - 39%
By the way, customers are not saying that price, product, & total solution are not important. They are saying that these 3 criteria are not that different. What is different, very different & the hands-down reason they buy is the relationship that they have with at least one person within the supplier's business.
There are 6 principles that drive these realtionship.
What you know is not as important as who you know - and who knows you is most important.
For baseball players, the easiest way to improve your batting average is to
pick better pitches to swing at. For salespeople, the easiest way to increase your close rate is to
find better leads. . . potential buyers that provide a much higher probability to buy from you.
Yogi Berra once said that
"90% of hitting is from the neck up" (meaning - the strategic approach you take to the plate - chosing to swing at hittable pitches),
"the other half is physical" (meaning - Yogi was a baseball coach not a mathmatician).
I played a lot of baseball growing up, put myself through college on a baseball scholoraship. The best firstbase coach I had in college was Len Ayers. You may be asking yourself - what does a firstbase coach really do? Well, Len would stand so close to the firstbase foul line that
he could pick up the catcher's signals. He would then relay those signals to the hitter - calling you by your name signaled "fast ball"; calling you by your number signaled "something off-speed". If you heard neither it simply meant he could not see the signs.
If a hitter knows what's coming it increases his batting average an easy 200 points . . . that translates to aproximately
doubling the close rate for a salesperson.
A salesperson's firstbase coach(s) is/are your best customers. You have a network of relationships that also have their own network of people that trust them. When you have your customers singing your praises to your prospects that is
3rd Party Validation. Any of these prospects that show interest are "belt-high fastballs" . . . meaning - high probability of buying from you.
The
key for you is to let your firstbase coaches know that you would like for them to signal for you. If you have taken care of them and they believe in you, they would love to
reciprocate and help both you and the potential benefactor.
Just because it's easy does not mean it's cheating. Picking up signals is part of the game . . . and just think - if you spend 90% of your time with the best prospects & the other half of your time building existing relationships . . .
you should increase sales 140%!!!
Henry Ford once said “thinking is the hardest thing a man can do . . . no wonder so few engage in it”. Customers don’t like to engage in prolong periods of cognitive reasoning – in essence, they are shouting from the mountain tops
“don’t make me think”! Therefore salespeople must learn how to make the
selection process a “no brainer”.
Once prospects have passed through the 1
st two
rites of passage (trust & urgency), they have already decided to make a change to their current situation. Now, they must simply select the best option.
They do this by comparing their choices. They need for one option to
stand out as the clear choice. This is where salespeople are given the opportunity to make their presentation, to offer their solution.
The problem with most presentations is they serve merely to convey data, not to persuade.
The purpose of every presentation is to persuade! In order to be persuasive, the salespeople must learn how to
create a sharp contrast between your solution and all others.
We must
boldly claim our uniqueness. . . what can your solution do (or do quicker, safer, more accurate, etc) the others can't? Customers are hard-wired to instantly recognizie contrast.
If we don't differentiate our solution, we are selling as much for the competition as for ourselves. When we boldly claim our uniqueness . . . we simplify the decision for the customer.
Learn the other ways to
make your sales presentations more persuasive.
The sales profession has been called the 2nd oldest profession known to man . . . often confused with the 1st. Retail shoppers would rather "
just wonder around" than have to talk with a sales clerk. Sales organizations go out of their way to change the title of their sales people because of it's negative connotation.
Salespeople that have gone before us have created a bad reputation for us all. However, there is a better way than trying to disguise ourselves as something we are not. The "better way" is to "
declare your intent". Be open and honest. Don't make people guess at your agenda, speak it plainly. Being transparent with your intent builds credibility.
Most of the clashes we have with others, either familiar or stranger, can be traced back to a failure to communicate. Even when you finally get to the heart of an issue -
he said you said - you may realize
that is indeed what I said, but it's not what I meant. . . the right words but the wrong emphasis & therefore the wrong meaning.
The key to effective communication is
declaring your intent. Often salespeople are reluctant to display this transparency for fear that the truth will sink the ship. So we use a counterfeit - misleading the customer to another, trivial pursuit. Misleading someone to your true intentions is worse than not telling them at all.
It has been said that sunlight is the best disinfectant, here are a few ideas that will help you:
- Check your intent to insure that it is good for all parties.
- Use the phone rather than email, email is easily misunderstood.
- Declare you intent very early in the conversation.
- Pre-empt the customer's obvious objections: "if I were you I would be thinking - that's great, but what about . . . "
Read more about
trust development.
Declare Your Intent is one of
12 persuasion triggers.
Newt Gingrich has an act for taking objections and flipping them into winners. Just this week he displayed his persuasive ability to take challenges designed to drop him in his tracks & articulate his response in a manner that "turned the tables" and propelled him forward with increased momentum.
Newt has been successful in
"reframing" questions in such a way that he is able to position the challenger, the "elite media", as the issue. While this technique has served Newt well, there is a
better method for sales people.
You see, Newt's technique persuades the audience at the expense of the one making the challenge or objection. However,
salespeople have a tougher job. We have to
handle objections without offending the one delivering the objection.
The key for salespeople is to "
confess your weakness" before anyone has the chance. Primary objections are easy to anticipate - and as such, should be addressed by you before the prospect catches you "with your hand in the cookie jar".
When someone, unsolicited, confesses a weakness, we tend to think of that person as having a high level of integrity. When we are the one that tables the weakness, we are better positioned to recast it as potential strength.
Read the
3 Pillars of Persuasionto learn more about creating trust.
The best way to create trust when selling is . . . to stop selling! Your objective, early in the sales process, should be to establish trust - you do that with relevant rapport. Selling, too soon, actually breaks rapport!
Where selling breaks rapport, education actually builds it. The one thing that all your prospects are most interested in . . . is themselves. Specifically, their market, their industry, and how they compare.
Our new preacher's first sermon was entitled "Fishing with Strawberries". It goes like this: a sales trainer asked the attendees if they liked strawberries . . . all them agreed that they loved strawberries. He then asked "do any of you enjoy fishing?", again the vast majority agreed they loved fishing. "Why then", he asked, "don't you use strawberries as bait when you go fishing?" They replied, "because fish don't like strawberries, I do!" And so it is, your prospects don't like hearing about how great your company, product or services are - they are interested in their own company, industry & market. Fish with that which they are interested in - educate them on their market and industry.
This is the key to creating relevant rapport and creating trust . . . stop selling, start educating.
Read more about creating trust by reading the 3 Pillars of Persuasion.
People may forget your name, but they will
always remember how you made them feel. The best way to make people feel good about themselves, & thereby feel good about you, is to acknowledge their perspective. Of course,
you can only acknowledge their perspective if you truly understand it.
Therefore, our first selling skill is to STOP selling! The key selling technique is:
if you want to persuade, begin by being persuaded. Listen . . . listen to the other with the
intent of only understanding.
Forget about what you are going to say next or how you are going to spin their situation to meet with your objective . . .
it’s too soon to talk about you.
We all perceive situations differently based on past life experiences. Therefore, it is critical that we not assume we know another’s perspective.
Communication is without question the most important skill in life! It is rare that we feel like someone really gets us . . . so when we find that person – we treasure them.
We all perceive situations differently based on past life experiences. Therefore, it is critical that we not assume we know another’s perspective.
The secret to communicating at the highest level is empathetic listening. We are sometimes hindered because we don’t agree with another’s perspective or values.
We don’t have to agree with them to understand them.
People soon forget the details of what you said or how you said it . . . but they long remember how you made them feel – and if you remember that, they will remember you . . . with a positive perspective.
Most Sales Presentations serve merely to convey data not to persuade.
The objective of every sales proposal should be to persuade. Contrary to popular opinion, the most important part of a persuasive presenation is not the close . . .
it's the start.
Unfortunately, too little thought is given to a strong start. However, if you can't
grab the prospect's attention at the beginningof your pitch, you won't have their interest when it's time to ask for them to take the next step.
Come out of the blocks with a strong start . . . prepare your
Opening Gambit. Webster defines a gambit:
"a remark intended to start a conversation or make a telling point; a calculated move". Your objective is to reach out grab the listeners by the collar and pull them in . . . figuratively, with your first words. There are several types of opening gambits that give you the power to engage them:
- Question: "How do you currently begin your sales presentation"?
- Anecdotal: "80% of juries decide their verdict immediately after the opening remarks of each attorney . . . before any evidence can be introduced."
- Statistic: "In the last 3 years, 33% of the businesses that do what YOU do, are no longer in existence"!
- Quotation: "According to HIRI, Home Improvement Research Institute, 60% of homeowners receive only one contractor proposal".
- Adage: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. However, the job of the salesperson is not to make them drink . . . it's to make them thirsty".
In fact, not only your presentation, but also the
first time you meet with a potential customer, requires proper preparation for a
persuasive start. When you first meet a prospect, t
heir "apprehension" is high and your "credibility" is low. Your objective is to increase your credibility in order to reduce their apprehension. Read
The 3 Pillars of Persuasion to learn how.
A picture is worth a thousand words. We process images much quicker than words. The next time you need to influence others - show the visual and your audience will get it at a glance.
Whenever you try to persuade another, eventually you have to prove your claims. One of the most powerful forms of proof involve demonstrations, props or photos . . . they help convey your message accurately and memorably. They are more credible and professional than words alone.
When we only untilize the narrative without incorporating the visual, we are not taking advantage of one of the most powerful triggers of persuasion. Rather than only describing the benefits, "show them" with "before and after" pictures. Why risk losing your audience to a 1,000 word monologue when a picture is more effective?
If you would like to read about other skills or behaviors that influence sales, read about the Sales Professional's Skill Set.
In matters of principle stand like a rock, but in matters of persuasion sell with the flow. Study after study reaffirms that a customer’s
emotion trumps their logic in the decision-making process. One of the
most persuasive emotions is that of congruency, or being consistent with one's values, rhetoric, and actions.
Some may say that we are mentally lazy, others that we are just being consistent to a personal declaration or value. Regardless of the reason, the fact is that it is human nature to retain our
personal credibility by remaining consistent to word and deed. Facts and logic just don’t have the same power over us that emotions do.
When we attempt to sell against another's belief, even when the belief is not accurate, we are selling
against the flow.
To be persuasive, you must move their emotion! This is the primary reason it so important to understand others before we attempt to be understood. The key is to understand from their perspective. When we genuinely see things from the other’s perspective, we are better suited to speak to their paradigm.
So, if you are trying to persuade people to trust and believe you, then you would be better off to speak to the beliefs they already hold rather than trying to sway them with facts and figures. And the key is to know what and who they believe in . . . you discover that when you take the time to truly understand them -
Seek Understanding First is one of the
12 Triggers of Persuasion.
Customer's will stand like a rock on their principles. In order to persuade, you must sell with, not against, these principles. This is the principle of
Congruency, you can read about all
6 Compliance Principles.
As the saying goes
"A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still."