I remember when I was young and single I would go out with friends and see pretty girls, but rarely had the gumption to go up and talk to them. The reason was fear of rejection. Nobody likes that feeling so we do what we can to avoid that possible self-inflicted wound.In the same way I was afraid to talk to a pretty girl, salespeople are reluctant to ask for the sale for fear of rejection. It’s safer for the ego to let the prospect “think it over and get back to you.” In their uncertainty, prospects do one of two things: 1) take the safe route and don’t change anything, or 2) go with the salesperson who fearlessly asked them if they could start on the paperwork.The number one question salespeople ask during The Principles of Persuasion Workshop® is, “What’s the best way to close?” My standard response is, “The best way to close starts the moment you meet prospects for the first time, look them in the eye and shake their hand.” From that point forward how easy or difficult closing is depends on what you do. I believe closing the sale should just be a natural part of the ongoing conversation with a prospect. The best compliment a salesperson can hear from a client is, “I never felt like I was being sold.”Early on in this series I quoted Jeffrey Gitomer, “All things being equal, people want to do business with their friends. All things being not so equal, people still want to do business with their friends.” Tapping into liking early and often will make a big difference by the time you ask for the business. Always start your contact with a prospect on a social level bonding over things you have in common and looking for opportunities to offer genuine compliments. The more you’ve done for the prospect and the more you’ve gone out of your way on their behalf, the more likely they are to look for some way to give back to you. If you’re unable to close the deal for some reason you might still leverage all you’ve done as a way to get some referrals because of reciprocity.People want to know they’re doing business with an expert because it gives them more confidence in their decision. As you make your way through the sales process, show yourself to be professional and someone your prospects can rely on for answers when they need them. In short, tap into authority. I believe consistency is the most important principle to tap into during the closing. Reminding people of what they said is a powerful motivator of behavior! This is where the upfront close comes in handy early in the sales cycle. At some point during the initial meeting or qualification stage you need to find out exactly what it will take for you to earn the right to do business with the prospect. If you know you can’t meet their requirements, cut your losses and move on. But, if you believe you can meet the requirements you might want to say something like this:“Shirley, from what you’ve shared it sounds like if we can meet your specifications at the agreed upon price by the delivery date you mentioned, we’ll be doing business, correct?”You want the prospect to come back with:“Correct. Meet those specs at that price by the delivery date we discussed and you have a deal.”This is also the time to confirm there are no other hidden reasons that might crop up to kill the deal:“Just to be very clear Shirley, are there any other reasons I’m unaware of that could get in the way of us doing business?”Again, you want her to confirm what you’re asking. When it comes time to close you only need to refer back to what you’ve already agreed on:“Shirley, great news. We can meet the specs at the price we discussed and can even deliver a little earlier than you requested. Can we go ahead and start the paperwork so we can get everything in motion?”It would be very hard for Shirley to come back and say no at this point after you’ve done everything she asked for. Will there be times when someone backs out? Sure. But, using consistency in an approach like this will have more people saying yes and will make it much easier and natural for you to seal the deal.Last, but not least, is scarcity. Pointing out what someone might save or gain by going with your proposal will not be as persuasive as honestly sharing what they stand to lose by not taking the step you recommend. For example, if you are in financial services, talking about how much more someone might be able to save for retirement by setting aside an extra percent of their income will not be as motivating as sharing what they will lose if they don’t save a little extra.Ineffective – “Ed, if we can find a way to set aside just 1% more you’re going to have more than $100,000 extra in the bank by the time you retire.” Effective – “Ed, if we can’t find a way to set aside just 1% more you’re going to lose out on more than $100,000 by the time you retire.” Hopefully these examples of weaving the principles of influence into the sales process will take some of the fear out of closing. There’s one more post in this series – asking for referrals. Next week we’ll look at ways to make that happen as naturally as the close, by effectively working the principles of influence into your sales cycle.Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.
Influencers from Around the World – “Tiny Habits” and Principle of Consistency
The April “Influencers from Around the World” post comes to us from Seoul, South Korea, thanks to my good friend Hoh Kim. Hoh and I earned our Cialdini Method Certified Trainer® designations together in 2008. Hoh is an incredibly intelligent individual and an expert when it comes to ethical influence. I encourage you to check out his website, The Lab h, and his blog, Cool Communications. Hoh is also on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter so reach out to connect with him.Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.”Tiny Habits” and Principle of ConsistencyMany of you may have heard about a recent bestseller, The small Big, by Steve Martin, Noah Goldstein, and Robert Cialdini. I recently co-translated this book into Korean language and it is now in Korean bookstores too. Big differences influencing others can come about from small changes. The “small big” principle also applies when I want to create a new habit. Recently, I participated in a program called “Tiny Habits for Work” by Liz Guthridge. Liz uses “tiny habit” methods created by Dr. B.J. Fogg. The program was interesting and quite useful. Let me introduce what I learned from the program about “tiny habits” as it may be quite useful for you too.When a new year starts, we normally think about creating a new habit such as to stop smoking, eat less, exercise more, read more, etc. Normally, in the first week of January, our motivation to try new things is quite high, but then doesn’t last long. Probably, by the end of January, we return to “normal state.” Motivation is not reliable, and you should not try things based solely on your motivation. So what we have to try are “tiny habits.” According to the handout of the program, tiny habit can be defined as follows: 1) you do at least once a day; 2) that takes you less than 30 seconds; 3) that requires little effort.Then, there is a recipe for tiny habits. You need to combine “anchor” behavior (which you already established and do every day) and new “tiny habits.” Liz recommended I come up with three tiny habits, and here they are:– AFTER my feet touch the floor, I will state my one big intention for the day.– AFTER I hang up the phone, I will take three deep breaths.– AFTER I lay down at night, I will think of one thing about work for which I’m grateful. Do you get the idea? You link new “tiny habits” to behaviors you naturally do every day. Some of the other examples given were, “After I get in the car, I will think of one thing I can do differently and better at work today” and “After I walk through the office door, I will smile at the first person I see.”Among the three tiny habits, the second tiny habit didn’t work well. I kept forgetting it. So, Liz shared an explanation with me. As I would take too many calls, it might be hard to do every time. That being the case, we looked to see if I could change to something I do once a day such as “AFTER I return to office from a lunch time…”While participating in this program, I thought about the principle of consistency. When influencing others, it often is useful to leverage small commitment. The tiny habit method is also in line with the “foot-in-the-door” technique. You start small (tiny habit), and if you can do the tiny habit continuously then you can move to a bigger habit. We are already into April so perhaps it is good time to reflect our New Year’s resolutions. If there’s something that didn’t work out as planned, perhaps you might be interested in trying the tiny habit. By the way, among the six principles of influence, the principle of consistency has an important difference from other five principles. It is about self-persuasion.Hoh KimFounder, Head Coach & Lead Facilitator, THE LAB hAddress: THE LAB h, 15F. Kyobo Bldg. Jongno 1, Jongno, Seoul 110-714, KoreaE-mail: [email protected]: 82-2-2010-8828 Home: www.THELA
The Psychology of the Sales Cycle – Negotiations
If you’re like the vast majority of people, when you make a purchase you want to believe you got a good, or great, deal. What’s your definition of a good deal? The deal is really the value you get from the transaction and when I talk about value I use the following equation:V = WIG/PValue equals What I Get divided by Price.There are two simple ways to look at it. If I can get more of something for the same price, that’s a better value. If I can get the same amount but pay less, again, that’s a better value.When it comes to value, getting a good deal, everyone would like to get more for less. We might not get as much as we want, or pay as little as we’d like, but believing the old adage – everything is negotiable – we’ll try our best to get more and/or pay less. And so will your prospects.Negotiating isn’t simply about lowering your price or giving away more stuff to make someone happy and close the sale. It’s about knowing when to deviate from traditional pricing or when to make concessions that will make both parties better off in the long run. It’s fair to say all the principles of influence and the contrast phenomenon might come into play as you negotiate but a few will stand out a little more.Liking remains very important because the more the prospect likes you and really wants to do business with you, the better your chance of getting to yes as you go through negotiation points. Continue to remain friendly, bond over things you have in common and offer compliments when warranted because those simple acts will grease the wheel. One study I regularly share in my influence workshops clearly shows people put in a negotiation scenario had a much better chance of avoiding a deadlock if they take the time to get to know each other on a personal level.The principle of reciprocity describes the reality that when you give, quite often people feel they should give in return. This is very important in negotiations because your act of conceding on some point might cause the other person to make a concession too and you’re now closer to agreement. A concession might be sweetening the deal with something that may not mean much to you but might mean a lot to the prospect. Again, your act of giving is met with something in return. That’s the basis for bartering. The key here is to be the first to take the step to the middle.Consistency allows you to fall back on what the prospect said earlier in the sales process. If they wanted certain features and those features have a price tag then the reason for the price being what it is might be due to their choices. Reminding them of what they said they wanted is powerful because most people won’t come back with, “I know what I said but I’ve changed my mind.”Scarcity is closely aligned with consistency because you can always offer to remove certain features to get the price more in line with customers’ expectations or budget. If you recall in the post I wrote on qualifying the prospect, I shared a conversation between an insurance agent and prospective customer. The agent shared a little about business income coverage and the prospect asked to have the price included in the insurance quote. The new coverage will cause the premium to be higher but could be modified in some way or removed as a concession if the prospect feels the price is too high. With a new understanding about the coverage and their exposure, prospects might just find a way to keep it because no one wants to think about an exposure they clearly know is not covered. Contrast is used to help the prospect see what is being offered is in fact a good deal. If they believe your price is too high you need to figure out what their comparison point is. Whatever they have currently might not be a valid comparison point because the features may have changed. If that’s the case you need to move away from the old price and get them to see the value in what you’re offering. For example, how does being $1,000 higher than a competitor breakdown over the life of a product with a five-year lifespan? Over five years, there are 260 weeks so your product will cost the prospect less than $4 a week. Can you show the prospect how your product is worth much more than the extra $4 a week you’re asking them to pay?Bottom line – Don’t be offended that the prospect wants more for less. We’d all love to have a Cadillac but it’s not reasonable to think we can get it for the price of a Volkswagen, is it? And so it is quite often in your negotiations during a sale. You need to work with the prospect to come up with a solution that makes them feel their needs were met and they got a good deal.Next time we’ll look at the part of the sales cycle I’ve seen salespeople struggle with the most – closing the sale, i.e., asking for the business. This doesn’t have to be difficult if you’ve set the expectations early on. Using the principles of influence effectively can make closing a natural part of the sales conversation.Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence OfficerinfluencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.
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