08/20/07 - The role of human nature in your sales (cont'd)

Every day, people buy inferior products from the person who is superior at coming across best. This week I'm covering a few simple words that can help you come across better and give you better results in everything, including sales.

As you may recall, each week in August, I will cover one of the fundamental areas that can affect how you come across, beyond just the "dress for success" stuff.

This will be truly-advanced stuff that I have never shared with anyone before, outside of my www.performanceleadershipgroup.com clients in the Global 2000.

First, be aware that a book could be (and has been) written on each of these. At www.performanceleadershipgroup.com, we have a six-month course that covers them.

The power here, for marketing, sales and generally succeeding in business, is staggering. This is the essence, we have found over the last 30 years, of the dialog that gets people into action.

Today I will be brief in my overview. You can be confident that I will keep coming back to these in the next 12 months, to help you put their immense power to work, in marketing, in sales, and in your efforts to succeed in business.

The critical words that can change everything are:

Relationship

Possibility

Clarity

Opportunity

Action

Completion

Here are the actions you can consider taking in relation to these actions:

Relationship: Confirm shared values and objectives. For example, "Mr. Johnson, we all go to work in the morning trying to do the best job we can. I know you are trying to do the best job for your company just as I am for mine." In essence, find a way to relate to the other person on the basis of shared values. Do this, and everything that follows will be better. Fail to do this, and you will have highly-variable results.


Possibility: Talk about the various possibilities for getting end results without judgment. For example, "What are the possibilities you see this year for making your numbers? What kinds of strategies and tactics do you think might even remotely work to meet this need?"


Clarity: This can come at any point in a dialogue, and should be encouraged. Interaction starts to die when either side in the dialogue loses clarity. For example, "Mr. Johnson, I am not clear on what is motivating you and your company to move in this direction. I might be able to be of some help if I understood a little better."


Opportunity: Possibilities become opportunities when they pass through the filter of constraints, including the timeline for results. For example, "Mr. Johnson, if you could keep your costs under X level, and meet all of your other conditions of satisfaction, would looking at my solution be an opportunity that you would be willing to examine more closely?"


Action: Once you have agreement that there is an opportunity, it is time to move into the "action" dialogue. For example: "Mr. Johnson, from my company's point of view, there are a number of possible first steps in this process. What is the first step you need to take to put this into action?"


Completion: Success comes after the fact. Let's assume that Mr. Johnson has done some business with you, and that you have gotten a satisfactory result. It is now time to briefly review what has happened, and to acknowledge everyone for their roles in realizing the benefits of the business relationship.

All these things seems so simple, and yet it rarely happens deliberately or completely. If you take baby steps in working through this with prospects and customers, you are likely to find that things go more smoothly, more profitably, and that the second, third and fourth sales happen much quicker. You will also find, if our experience is any indication, that referrals happen almost automatically. Pretty cool.

Here is the (Monday) newsletter schedule for the next three weeks:

August 27th: The listening filters that make it difficult for us to come across well.

September 3rd. The number one key to coming across effectively.

Cheers,

Eric Albertson
Portland OR
August 20, 2007