#TuesdayTips

The elevator pitch is one of the essential business tools you need.  It’s rumoured that the elevator pitch came out of the process screenplay writers used to get the attention of producers and directors in Hollywood.  They were so hard to book time with that script writers would go to the movie office and wait for the producers and directors to arrive in their cars. Then they would get into the elevator with them, and spend the 30 seconds while they arrived at the floor to pitch the concept of their script.

An elevator pitch is not the only way to pitch your business, it’s not even the ideal way to pitch it, but it is an important way of getting your foot in the door.

Basically, an elevator pitch is your chance to describe your business and capture someone’s attention within 30 seconds.  Often, when people are asked what they do, they respond with a job title, or a profession like, “Oh, I do SEO.” “I’m a finance broker.”  That’s not really a conversation opener, because you already know (or think you know) what that means, so you lose interest.

An elevator pitch should be designed to capture a person’s attention and attract an emotional response because people buy on emotions and benefits, not on features. They’ll usually buy to solve problems too, so if you’ve got a solution to a significant problem that I’m experiencing, I will pay whatever I need to pay to get rid of that problem.  People are far more likely to spend money to move away from pain, than towards pleasure. So your elevator pitch is a very elegant way of being able to present the problem you solve very succinctly. 

If you were a mortgage broker your elevator pitch might go something like this: –

“You know how when you put an application in for a loan and you don’t actually get the loan but it goes as a mark on your credit rating whether you got it or not and that can influence how you get loans in the future? 

Well, what we do is we offer a specialised consultative service whereby it helps people to ensure that when they apply for the loan, that’s the loan they’re going to get, not adversely affecting their credit rating and making sure that the product is right for them. 

In fact, we just recently helped a solicitor to manage a situation with his client where he’d been to several brokers and had a problem with his credit rating. We were able to find the right product for him and save him around $2000 a month on repayments.”

What’s the problem, what’s the solution, what’s the evidence of each.

A florist’s elevator pitch might go like this: – “You know how a lot of wedding florists are out there arranging flowers that look fantastic when they leave the box, but halfway through the ceremony they’re wilting and  going brown already?

Well, what we do is we make sure that we understand what the needs of the bride and the bridal party are and where the wedding’s going to be and actually provide a consultative service to make sure that they have everything they need and that the right suggestions of floral arrangements are made for the particular day and the look and feel that’s designed by the bride for her special day. 

In fact we recently had a bride that came in and wanted red and white carnations.  Here, let me show you the pictures of how beautiful they looked.”

Your elevator pitch is a fantastic tool to use at networking events, because it’s a conversation opener, rather than a closer.

Not many people actually know what a Life Coach does, or what neuro-linguistic programming is.  So, if I go up to someone at a networking event and say I’m an NLP trainer or a Life Coach, they say, “Oh, that’s nice.”,  If I follow up with “Have you heard of NLP?” they’re kind of stuck.  Maybe they have, maybe they haven’t, but they don’t want to look stupid, and they’re not really interested.

But if I say,

”You know how sometimes people feel like they’re doing everything they can to increase their business and it just seems like they get rejection after rejection and that often makes them feel like they’re not very good at what they do? 

Well, what we do is we actually make people identify where those belief systems are coming from and use hypnotic processes to allow them to make changes at the unconscious level. 

In fact, I recently worked with a guy who had such a belief about money which actually stemmed from something his grandfather used to say, and he just used to hear him saying it in passing. We did a simple process that took around 10 minutes and that week he went and closed a $100,000 sale, one that he had been working on for about 3 months without any joy.”

I haven’t said I’m an NLP trainer, I’ve told you about a problem, I’ve told you about a solution and I’ve given you evidence on how I solved that problem.

People buy on problems and solutions, they don’t buy on features, and they don’t care what I call myself.  Maybe if they’re interested in doing some business with me they might want to find out a little bit more about that.  So the next question is, “Oh, how did you do that?” or “What hypnotic processes? Do you really believe in hypnosis?” It opens a conversation. Instead of engaging in a situation where they get stuck with a label, I’m drawing their attention to a potential problem that they might actually have.

Rather than saying, “I’m this and I can help anyone, tell your friends and family and anyone you know who has legs to come and see me.” I’ve told them the kinds of people I work with, and the problems I solve.  I don’t work with everybody. There are NLP trainers out there who work with children – I don’t work with children, it’s not a specialty area of mine. There are NLP trainers out there that focus on holistic, I tend to look at NLP in the context of business, in terms of how you communicate with people, how you are having joint communications, how are you projecting yourself within your business.

Sometimes when I mention hypnosis in a business context people are clearly thinking that hypnosis has nothing to do with business.  That’s actually why I like to put it in there, because it stops people in their tracks, and in the context of a $100,000 dollar sale it draws attention.  Here’s a secret: It takes people to run businesses, and the people that run those businesses have emotions and sometimes they don’t know what to do with them, so you need to be able to resourcefully deal with your emotions in order to represent your business.  Hypnosis helps people deal with the emotions that are stopping them from doing business really well.

If you sign up for our mailing list you will receive a special elevator pitch tool, but I want to lead you through the NLP way of phrasing your elevator pitch because it’s very purposeful and specific.  It’s deeply rooted in the science of communication, so you’ll find these patterns under different labels all over the place.  People use them because they are powerful and proven.

Opening with, “You know how a lot of people have XYZ problem …” draws the person’s attention to what you’re about to say next … it starts them searching their minds to find out whether that’s a problem for them and they try to think of times when they felt that way or when they had that problem.

Continuing with, “Well, what I do is …” frames the problem in terms of your specific solution and draws their thinking forwards from the problem to the solution.

And finally, “In fact, …” displays convincing evidence that your solution works, and cements the kind of people you help and results you get firmly in their mind.

So effectively you are answering several questions in your 30 second pitch:-

  • What are the problems that your service answers?
  • What are common solutions to the problem?
  • How do you solve that problem?
  • And then where is some evidence that you’ve been able to do that?

You may develop several elevator pitches that reflect different facets of your business, but each one should focus on a single aspect.  If you are not sure about how to develop your elevator pitch sign up to our mailing list and you’ll receive our fantastic Elevator Pitch Tool.

Meta Description:  A perfect elevator pitch is an essential business tool to gain the attention of your ideal clients, and help them refer others to you.

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Book your complimentary 30-minute Discovery Session with Chandell.

By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

Many businesses work within a single theme that has various elements and aspects to it.  The problem is that if someone asks you what you do, most people head for the biggest umbrella they can hide under and say something like, “I’m an accountant, (or a lawyer, or a teacher).” This is a conversation-killer.  It’s too general for people to really grasp what you do, and it has the added disadvantage that they think they already know all about it.

Another pet peeve of mine is the response to “Who is your target market?” ‘Everyone’ is not anyone’s target – particularly if you’re a service business.  You just don’t have the capacity to deal with everyone.  So it’s up to you to decide who are your most profitable customers, and who are the ones you like working with.  Profile them and look for more like them.

Your niche might be an industry, it might be a demographic, it might be a mindset.  The easiest way to find your niche is to ask yourself two questions, “What is the biggest problem that I solve?” and “Who are the greatest sufferers from this?”

You can still work with a variety of clients, but if you work out that the people you enjoy working with most are in a certain industry or demographic then focus on them.  You’ll pick up other clients, but you’ll be working with more of the people you love. You’ll also be able to charge higher prices because you’ll be targeting a specific kind of client and people are willing to pay more to work with specialists in their area.

At Life Puzzle, I tend to work with business and corporate clients. I don’t focus too much on solving health problems or personal problems – Teresa mostly works with those problems.  So if I’m working with a business client and a health issue comes up, we’ll work on it together but if a person contacted us and their needs were mostly outside of the business arena that person would be encouraged to work with Teresa.  Neither of us really focuses on children and the educational aspect of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) so we would refer that need elsewhere.

This says a few things to our clients: – it tells them we’re specialists, and that we’re not so hungry that we take everyone.  It also lets me provide targeted information to people when I meet them at networking events.

If I meet you at a networking event and say to you, “Oh, I do Neuro-Linguistic Programming which is the study of how to use the language of the mind to consistently achieve our specific and desired outcomes.” Do you care?  Most people don’t.

On the other hand, if I say to you, “Last week I did a 2-hour workshop with a company where I am running an NLP communication program. Each week I go into the office and we apply Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques to their product and service. In this session with them we outlined all the values of the two directors of the business, and it was really funny because one of the directors had profit very low on their values list.  The hierarchy and order of values are very important.  We realigned the values so both directors were in agreement, and we changed them at the unconscious level, and that week they went out and closed a $200,000 deal. 

Guess what?  If I talk about the possibility of making a simple change in a couple of hours that makes a $200,000 sale – that’s pretty powerful.  People want to know how, why, when, do I find out more about that?

Since I also help people with other problems sometimes I’ll think, “Migraines or self-worth will probably be more interesting to this person.” And I’ll frame it in such a way that they can think,   “Oh, my aunty has terrible migraines every other week, I’m going to refer her to Chandell.”  The point is, saying something specific is much more effective than making a general statement about what you do.

It’s a question of asking questions to find out about other people, interests and expertise and then using that information to determine what part of your business will be most interesting to them.

Feel free to share some of the questions you ask to learn about the people you meet at networking and business events?

Meta Description:  Working in a niche makes earning more easier because being more specific helps people identify with your business.

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By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

“I really think you’ll love this skincare product, it’s 100% plant-based and all the packaging is environmentally-friendly and …”

“That’s not what I’m really looking for in my skin-care regime.  I want quick, easy, and effective.” was my response.

“But …”

And she’s lost me.  She didn’t listen.  Yes, I care about the environment, I care about the ingredients and all that – but when it comes to skin-care I care more about how it makes my skin look and feel, and how easy it is to use.  I’m busy, and every product I use needs to fit in with my lifestyle.

When you are selling something, listen to your prospect and ask questions so that you can work out what is most important to them, and discover why they would consider buying your product in the first place. 

You can only sell if people are interested in buying from us, so why do people buy?

People Buy When They Know It Is For Them

One of the problems service-based businesses face is that clients have to buy your services before they can fully understand the benefits you bring to them.  I hear this a lot from service operators and it frustrates me intensely. 

If you think about it you understand exactly why prospects won’t buy into something that they know little about because you wouldn’t do it yourself.  Savvy business owners stop complaining and start educating their prospects about the value of the service and what it will actually do for them.

I’d like you to meet Elizabeth, a Natural Therapies Practitioner who also offers Kinesiology, Emotional Freedom Technique and several other very valuable modalities.   She charges $125p/hour for her sessions and all of the clients she has worked with have had amazing transformations in their health and well-being so she has some very convincing testimonials and case studies.

Like most service business owners, Elizabeth needs more clients but she had trouble getting people to buy an introductory session to learn how these modalities might help them.

That’s not just Elizabeth’s problem, it’s a problem for many of us!  Why would anyone want to invest $125 just to find out whether something can help them? Most people have other things to do with $125 than just ‘try’ something out.  Even worse, what if I decided to give it a whirl and didn’t get the result straight away? I would probably go out and tell others about how Kinesiology doesn’t work and label Elizabeth as a quack to some of my friends/family. Terrible, but it does happen.

Elizabeth and I discussed the importance of educating people about Kinesiology and those other modalities – and how they could help.

How Can You Educate Your Prospects?

Elizabeth could hold a free monthly information session. Say, the first Monday of the month you can run an education session for 5-10 people that tells them about kinesiology, explains the problems it solves and the conditions it treats.  You might even provide a quick demonstration – but you mostly want to focus on the results it has given others.  You might make it free, or you might charge a small fee – but your goal for this session is not to make money, it is to get people in the door, so you need to balance a perception of value, with a ‘no-brainer’ situation.

This gives people who would never pay $125 just to ‘try it out’ the chance to get to know you and understand what you do without spending money on something they know nothing about. You can really raise their value perception. But you can also talk about what kinesiology can do for your prospect. Maybe they need it, maybe they don’t. Perhaps they really need it desperately, but they might not know that.   Once you’ve got them in the session you can talk about all these issues kinesiology and the other modalities address, and something triggers their response,  “Oh, I see value in that now, because it will release this issue that I’ve got, can I come and have a session?”

Problem solving, and how your solution helps people is much more interesting than if you talk about processes like muscle testing. Most prospects won’t really resonate with the details of your process because they don’t care – but if I’m a chronic migraine sufferer and you say, “I’ve got this thing called kinesiology, it helps with migraines and here’s the proof, come and talk to me about it.” then that’s helping me solve a real problem.  I don’t connect with the features of kinesiology, I connect with the benefits of it.  So what’s the end outcome? Ask yourself that question and then talk about those things – the solution to urgent problems.

Create Opportunities to Educate

Look, I get the struggle to attract clients, but I work on the philosophy of empowerment – I’m all about empowering people to move towards the goals they really want.  Complaining about the economy won’t change anything (although what we focus on does get out energy), but taking action to change will. I hope you’re starting to see how valuable this material is – if you understand yourself, and put yourself in your buyer’s shoes, you’ll find ways to help them understand the value of what you do.

You need to think creatively about demonstrating the value of your service – education does take effort, but it is much more effective than sitting around complaining about not having clients, or people being unwilling to pay your prices.

Meta Description:  Understanding what is important to your prospect in their buying decision is a crucial factor in closing sales.

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By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

Maybe you never make a buying decision on the basis of your personal response to the sales person.  I’ve had people say that to me, “All my business decisions are purely logical – I don’t need any of that rapport stuff!”

And the next words out of the mouth are, “No, there’s just something about Jim that I don’t trust.”

I’m not prejudiced against any particular type of person, but a kinaesthetic person has some unique features that make them fantastically successful when dealing with other kinaesthetic people, and not so successful with other types.  So let me tell you about Bob, the Photocopier man.

I was working at an Event Management Company selling $50k—$60k sponsorships and we had some really great marketing material – but we were printing the promotional brochures out on a bubble jet printer and I said, “Listen – this is not cost effective and it doesn’t look good. You spent all this money (about $20k) designing this marketing material, would you please let me get a proper printer?”  

He told me to go ahead, signed off on the budget, and I called up a photocopier company and asked them to send someone out because we were ready to buy a unit.   I’d had previous experience with this brand at another company and knew that they were really reliable, and produced great results, so the only reason that I asked them to send someone out is because there were two very similar models and I could not work out what was the difference between them.

So Bob was their representative and the morning he was coming in I had a bit of a crisis.  Three of my sales staff were sick, we had a big sponsorship meeting prepared and I was having to divide different appointments between people,  and shuffle things around to get everything done that day with three people missing. 

When Bob walked in I said, “Bob, it’s so great to have you here, thanks for coming, I had a bit of a crisis this morning, as it turns out I don’t have an hour to spend with you, I could probably do 15 minutes. But it’s okay because I’ve already decided to go ahead, I’ve got the budget signed off, I just need you to tell me what’s the difference between this model and this one.”

And Bob launches into his sales spiel, “Oh yes, Chandell, thanks for having me. Our company started in 19…”

So he got through about three pages in his compendium and I said, “No, I’m sorry to interrupt but I don’t think you understand – I’m ready to buy, the boss has signed off on the budget. All I need is for you to tell me what’s the difference between this model and the model with the E, because we’re ready to buy.”

“Oh yes, and you know our toners are all recycled …”  He just talked and talked and completely failed to listen.

After 45 minutes of their history and how they dispose of the cartridges and everything else, I’m about to kill him.  There was no way I was going to buy this machine because when you buy a machine from them, the person that sells it to you is also your account manager, and I was not going to deal with Bob every time we had a problem with the machine.  So I thanked him for his time and I sent him on his merry way, picked up the phone and I called their competitor.

Bob lost a sale that he already had because he didn’t listen, and he didn’t give me what I wanted.   All he could see was what he had been taught, and how he wanted to be sold to.

Meta Description:  The sad story of how lack of understanding of internal representation systems lost a deal.

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By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

In my last post I talked about the importance of understanding how you see the world, and how other people see it in order to communicate with them effectively.  Today I’m going to share some pointers which will help you identify what the internal representation system of another person is. If your offer is truly unique and compelling, or you have something that your prospect wants desperately enough then it won’t matter how you present it, but if there is any doubt in their mind then failing to pick up on their internal representation system, and to speak to it could be a deal-breaker.

As I mentioned, there are four primary internal representation systems: – Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic, and Auditory-digital.

Visual:

A visual person is concerned with how things look and appearance is an important part of what drives the decision making process.  As I mentioned, I’m a visual person –  if you don’t provide me with a visual prompt you can lose my interest, and lose the deal.

How do you recognise a visual person?

  • They talk rather quickly;
  • They usually stand or sit up straight;
  • They breathe up in their chest (because they’re talking too fast to breath deeply into their belly);
  • They care about how things look, and they want to see pictures;
  • Their speech is full of visual words like: – see, look, view, appear, show, clear, imagine.

A visual person will often use phrases like  “Can you see what I’m saying?” or “It appears to me that …”, “That’s really brilliant, I can really see where you’re coming from.”  “I just need to get some clarity on that.” because their visual senses are extremely active.

Auditory:

An auditory person is concerned with what they hear, and will make decisions based on that.  They love music and they’re usually the kind of person who will hear something once and know all the words to the song, remember a tune, learn by ear.  They’ll want to hear all about your program – and a written version won’t have the same impact.

How do you recognise an auditory person?

  • They talk at medium speed – slower than a visual person, but faster than a kinaesthetic person;
  • They breath about half-way down their chest – deeper than a visual person, not as deep as a kinaesthetic person;
  • They have flexible tonality in their voices and rarely talk in a monotone;
  • Their eyes will often move from side-to-side while they’re talking because they’re trying to construct what they’re saying and they’re recalling what they’ve said or heard;
  • They use auditory words like: hear, sound, listen, resonate, question.

Do you see how powerful understanding this is?  If you know your own internal representation strategy, and can identify the ones that  others are use, you’ll pick up on their cues much more readily.  When you find someone who shares your own system, you can go ahead and sell as though you were selling to yourself, but if you find someone different you can modify your strategy.  That way you’ll close many more sales.

Kinaesthetic:

A kinaesthetic person is mostly pre-occupied with how they feel.  They will often take a long time to move through the sales process, and you may wonder if they’re just a tyre kicker after all.  They are probably the group most likely to do business with other kinaesthetic communicators because they are operating on their ‘gut feeling’ and need to feel a strong sense of attraction to move forwards.

How do you recognise a kinaesthetic person?

They talk and move quite slowly;
They breathe deeply – right down in their belly;
They take their time over things and hate to be rushed;
They need time to ‘feel’ that something is right;
They use words like: feel, touch, catch on, solid, grasp.

Your kinaesthetic person hates to be rushed and will walk away from a deal that is otherwise perfect if they feel they are being pushed into it.  If you are selling to a kinaesthetic person you need to be patient and persistent because it’s not that they’re uninterested, it’s just that it takes time for them to get comfortable with the concept or product you’re offering to them. 

Auditory Digital:

People with Auditory-digital internal representation schemes usually have a strong secondary scheme, which is the thing you should be looking for.  Auditory-digital people spend a lot of time in self talk – sometimes they communicate with themselves so clearly that they think they’ve actually already told you things, that they just said to themselves.

How do you recognise an auditory-digital person?

  • They will often have their eyes down because they are talking to themselves;
  • They are very analytical, if you’re lucky they’ll speak their analysis out loud even though they’re talking to themselves rather than to you;
  • They usually have a backup sense, which is what you should look for;
  • They use words like: experience, understand, think, process, consider, know.

Auditory-digital processors can sometimes be the hardest group to sell to because they need to convince themselves before they can accept your input.

The point of understanding both your own, and your customer’s internal representation systems is that it’s not about you!   You need to focus on your customer and what they want to hear and what they want to know. 

If you’re in the situation where you’re thinking. “This is not working for me right now and I feel like I’ve tried everything.”  Ask yourself if you really have tried everything.  Are you trying to communicate in the way you prefer, or the way they prefer?  The difference between the person crying over there and the person having a crappy day is what you do with it – NLP gives you tool to do things differently.

Have you ever noticed this?  When you look back on deals you might have lost could it be because you weren’t appealing to the right internal representation system?

Leave a comment below and let me know if you agree with this idea.

Meta Description:   The four primary internal representation systems and how you can identify them and use your understanding to change your business outcomes.

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By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

I’m naturally quite a visual person.  A few years ago I met with someone who was going to do a social media strategy for me.  She charges about $1200 a month and I’d heard wonderful things about her, so I thought it was all going to be really fantastic and I was ready to go ahead with the solution.  We had a successful meeting and I was very happy with our discussion, so at the end of the meeting I said, “Look, if you can just send me a one page document, with three or four bullet points on everything that we just talked about, I can sign off on it and we’ll get started.”

She never did send me the document, so we never started the work.  I couldn’t run my decision making strategy because I needed to see it there in front of me.  It was a 12 month contract, so she cost herself quite a bit of money because she didn’t provide me with a one-page outline.  I even made the point of saying,  “It doesn’t need to be a fancy proposal, just three or four dot points outlining in writing what we discussed today so I can sign off on it.” 

The woman that was selling me the social media strategy was an auditory person.  From her perspective, she had told me all I needed to know to make a decision.  I don’t know if went away and said,  “I can’t understand why Chandell didn’t sign up, because she told me she had all of the things that she needed, but I’m going to be a victim about the fact that I didn’t get the sale.”  A lot of sales people do respond that way when the sale doesn’t go through, when in actual fact she wasn’t listening hard enough – I told her what I needed from her to make the decision and really I wasn’t asking her for all that much. In the context of it, if I’m going to spend $1200 a month for 12 months it’s a fair bit of money to spend to get three dot points on a sheet of paper.

As far as she was concerned, we’d gone over the system verbally and I’d agreed, so there was no more to be done.  Some people work like that. I don’t. It’s not wrong, it’s just different.

The point is we all see things differently because we have different Internal Representation Systems, and if you can get your head around this concept you won’t be leaving money on the table, just because you didn’t communicate in the way another person prefers (or requires).

Internal Representation Systems - A Powerful Tool

A number of workshop participants find that the insights they gain from this section are game-changers.  In the Confident Closing workshops we have a short quiz that indicates your strongest internal representation system.  The thing I always stress is that this system is not set in stone for anyone – it varies from day to day, and ideally as you increase your awareness you’ll be able to use all the internal representation systems fairly equally.  This is part of becoming a more flexible communicator.

What I want to stress here, is that this is not a boxed system, and you shouldn’t put yourself (or anyone else) in a box.  If you were to evaluate your answers to the quiz they’d change from day to day – this is simply a tool to help you understand yourself and others better, and to help you communicate more clearly.

Basically there are four internal representation systems, and we all use all four of them to a greater or lesser extent.  It really is important to understand that we don’t have just one Internal Representation System, and we can strengthen them all, because a few years ago this concept was taken into the classroom in the form of Learning Styles with the idea that every child was either one thing or another, and that you could blame their lack of progress on a teacher who didn’t teach to their particular style.

This is so very opposed to everything I believe that I have to stress the point here.  Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is about growth, and about taking responsibility for your outcomes.  You are not a victim of anyone as long as you are learning and growing.

The four internal representation systems are: – Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic, and Auditory-Digital.  In the next post, I’ll outline how you can recognise the primary characteristics of these systems, but right now I really want to stress that as a business owner or sales person you need to be able to use all of these systems depending on the person you are talking to.  Think about it as another skill you want to develop to make your relationships stronger and more successful.

Do you think that your communication style is fixed and inflexible?  Or do you see this as yet another area in which you have potential to grow?  Leave a comment below to let us know what you think.

Meta Description:  How the way you see the world affects your communication with others – and how understanding the way this works can change your business outcomes.

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By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

I see sales people and business owners all the time who assume they know exactly what their prospects and clients want.  Sometimes they are right.  Sometimes not.

If you think that people aren’t biting on the bait you’re putting out because you’re not getting the words right, think again.  That may be the reason, but what if it’s not?  It always pays off to examine other possibilities.

Most people will tell you exactly what they need and are listening for if you listen carefully enough.  Sometimes I do role plays with my clients where I actually get them to sell to me and it’s really interesting watching them just make assumptions about what my needs might be rather than spending some time asking me questions.

If you believe that you listen to others, then ask yourself how often do you actually hear what’s being said in response? That is the truly important thing, because often we think we’re listening, but we actually have a conversation going on inside our head while the other person is talking, “Oh my God, he said that! I must have to bring the conversation around to this other thing,” and before I know it I’ve missed half of what he said.  

We make assumptions like this with our clients all the time – we assume what it is that they need, and what we think they want and what they should have and all that sort of thing.  And we ignore the reality that we aren’t the one that needs to get them to the point of decision – they need to get themselves there based on the things that you’re saying.

When you’re selling you’re influencing and it’s the art of influence, it’s not the art of beating others into submission.  So I use the metaphor that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink, and the way people sometimes go about trying to sell to their clients, it’s like they’re dragging the horses and they’ve shoving their head in the water – drown or buy!  But a better way is to give your clients a thirst – feeding them salt so that by the time we’ve led them to the water they’re thirsty enough to drink.

If you were a Travel Agent in a situation where you’d looking to give people information about a holiday, you could make an assumption that they want to do some really great tours and that might not actually be what they’re looking for.  Some people love tours, but when I go travelling, the last thing I want to do is get on a bus with a whole bunch of people and be tied to the schedule when it’s time to go to the next place, because if I’ve seen that then I’m done and I want to move on. Or perhaps I want to stay here a little bit longer and have a look for a little bit longer, I don’t want to be on somebody else’s watch.

If you asked the right questions, you’d work this out and you might suggest some private tours which I’d probably be happy to pay more for because I would enjoy myself a lot more than if I was being dragged around.

So if you ask me. “How is it that you decided you were going to visit America this year?”

I might respond “Well, I always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, there’s something about it that just kind of draws me there.  I get caught up in the idea of going to this wondrous place and I imagine that the energy there is absolutely amazing and breath-taking and I just really want to be able to experience that.” 

That gives you the opportunity to ask more questions, “So what’s important to you about the experience, or what activities do you really want to take part in? and, Do you want to do the Grand Canyon by foot or do you want to do it by helicopter?  What sort of experience is important to you?  Have you given any thought to that?”

The chances are I’ll respond, “No, I’m really not sure, can you tell me what people do there?” Then I’m inviting you to actually give me some more information.

Now, most people would jump in there and start to do their sales pitch, but we haven’t stepped up the value, or gathered anywhere near enough information yet to be able to pitch to them, so don’t jump in too quickly.

Motivation questions are really important because I’m learning what’s really important to them about that project and getting insights that I can’t get any other way.  I can learn what information she already has, or what challenges she’s facing.

Once you’ve got information about what’s important to your client you need to demonstrate what you can do to meet those motivations.

If you ask somebody “What are the problems in your business at the moment?”  They’re usually not going to give you a direct answer.  They will probably be rather defensive, guarded and cynical about why you are asking that question.  Any answer that they do give you will probably only scrape the surface of the problem.  So if you want to uncover the problems they really want to solve you need to use indirect questions.

The answers to these questions help you to chunk down on the information because if the answer was, “I need some help.”  you need to understand how they define help.  As we discussed earlier, everyone’s language map is a little different, so this requires us to drill down and discover what the client means when he talks about ‘help’.  If I just jump in and offer what I would consider ‘help’ I might mean something completely different.

So you need to find that out from the client, because if you make an assumption about what that is then you might potentially lose out on, or you could upset the client because they might have expected ‘A’, and you’ve delivered solution ‘B’ thinking that was what they wanted. 

What this does is it helps you to identify the problems and that’s the key element of the questioning. When I have a meeting with someone, I like to take an interest in them, because I am interested in what’s important to them. If I go in and start pitching my product straight away in terms of what it could offer them, I then look like I’m trying to be interesting rather than being interested in how I can help them.

The more questions you ask before you start providing solutions, the more likely it is that your solutions will be welcomed enthusiastically.  Your client will know that you have listened to them, and will see that you understand their problem, so don’t be too quick to put them in a box and write the label – keep asking questions until you are certain that what you assumed is really true.

Meta Description:  Assumptions create misunderstanding.  Questions create clarity.  Don’t assume you know the answer, develop questions that help you find out what the answer really is.

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Book your complimentary 30-minute Discovery Session with Chandell.

By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

This is the final part of a detailed look at the 5-Step Sales Process.  So far we have looked at the importance of :-

  • Building Rapport; [Link to #20]
  • Asking Questions; [Link to #21]
  • Establishing Need & Value-Add; [Link to #22]
  • Proposing a Solution; [Link to #23]

– and now we will look at Closing the Sale – the part that puts the money in your pocket and commits you to doing the work.

Closing the sale doesn’t happen in a vacuum.  In fact, by the time you have completed step #4 you should know quite clearly whether or not you are going to make the sale.  If you find yourself losing sales at this point then you need to look closely at what you are doing in the previous steps.  Maybe you are not listening hard enough in the early part of the discussion, or maybe you are rushing ahead to the close.

I always love it when we get to this part of the Confident Closing workshops and participants share about their experiences with closing.  We had one that was extremely fascinating with two participants who had the same results (low sales closure rates) for completely opposite reasons. One man said that he was surprised when he walked away without closing a deal because prospects were always very, very interested in his product throughout the presentation, but when it came to the final decision they weren’t buying.  We went through his sales presentation process as a role-pay exercise and then I asked the group, “Why doesn’t he close more sales?”

The answer came back immediately, “He never asked for the sale.”

The participant was amazed.  “You wanted the product.  You could see it’s value to your business.  You told me that all the way through.”

“Yes, but you never told me how I could buy it or asked me to make a commitment.  I almost felt like a dog that was being teased with a treat.”

It took a few minutes to convince him, but he finally realised what his problem was. “Wow! I’ve wasted so many opportunities just because I assumed that it was obvious that people should buy.”

I met with this man a few weeks later and he said, “Chandell, Confident Closing was amazing – totally worth the 2-days I invested in it; but it was those few minutes after I presented my sales pitch that have really transformed my business.  I’ve changed my close rate from around 15% to over 80% just by adding 2 sentences to my pitch. ‘Do you think that would be of value to your business?’ and ‘Would you like to buy this?’  I can’t believe how much money I used to throw away.”

Anyway, we moved from this man’s sales process to one of the other men in the room.  My first impression of this second man was, “Why has he come to Confident Closing?  Surely he is already a fantastic sales person.”

It turned out that his closing rate was terrible, and I found that hard to believe, so when we came to the demonstration I asked him to come up and demonstrate his sales pitch.  The woman he was selling to had a hard time answering any of his questions – because he kept answering them for her – and he arrived at the closing portion within about 4 minutes of starting his pitch after totally missing the boat on every single one of the preceding 4 steps.

By the time he asked for the sale (which he did brilliantly), he had told her 15 generic reasons why she needed his service for her business (most of which did not apply to her); he had not discovered anything particular about what she did and he’d offered about 4 solutions that were clearly generic.  She had no reason to buy, and no interest in doing so, but he spent quite some time trying to persuade her.

He accepted the feedback, but clearly didn’t understand what people meant, so I offered to show him what it felt like.  I used his exact tactics to sell him one of my programs (not a strategy I would EVER use in real life).  After about 8 minutes he turned to us with a hunted look in his eyes. “I see what you mean.  I feel as though I’ve been bludgeoned with a blunt axe and I don’t ever want to meet you again.  There’s no way I would ever say ‘yes,’ to your offer, no matter how appealing it was.”

It was a very enlightening process for everyone in the room.  This second man came back to a later training with me and he had completely revamped his sales process.  The biggest lesson he learned was that if you spend  enough time on the first 4 steps, you don’t need to bludgeon anyone into buying at step 5.  When you ask for the sale, your ideal clients will simply agree to buy, and the others will go away with no regrets.

Do you have a favourite selling process?  How is it working for you?  Tell us about it in the comments. 

Meta Description:  Your sales conversation went really well, and you were sure that your prospect was going to buy, but you walk away without a firm deal.  What happened?  How can you make sure it doesn’t happen again.

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Book your complimentary 30-minute Discovery Session with Chandell.

By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

Most people know what they want, but they are not necessarily so anxious for what they really need.  Your job is to discover what they need, and make them want it. Is this evil manipulation?  I would say, “No. Not if what they need helps them achieve their real goals. “

I’ve  written about the entire 5-Step Selling process in another post [Link] and today I’d like to talk about where that process really takes you.   You see, I’m a firm believer in creating win-win situations, and if you are effectively selling solutions to people who don’t really need them, then you’re winning, but your client might not be.

The five key steps to sales success involve:-

  • Building Rapport; [Link to #20]
  • Asking Questions; [Link to #21]
  • Establishing Need & Value-Add; [ Link to #22]
  • Proposing a Solution; [Link to #23]
  • Closing the Sale. [Link to #24]

So, you have established rapport and asked many questions (and listened to the answers they gave) and now you are talking to your prospect (or existing client) about a service or product you sell that you can clearly see would add value to their business – therefore it’s something they need.

The first thing you need to remember is that they don’t know your business as well as you do.  It is really important never to assume your prospect will grasp the value you could bring to them.  Even your existing clients may absolutely understand how valuable the services you already provide are, but might not see why they should purchase more.  It is your responsibility to show them how much they could gain by purchasing it.

By the time we get to this step in the sales process I know what the other person’s goals and objectives are.  I usually have a pretty good idea of their secondary goals, as well as their primary goals, and I have some insight into the things they value based on their responses to my questions, so it’s easy to stack the value for them.

Wants vs. Needs

Your prospect knows what he wants (a specific outcome) – but sometimes he confuses the outcome with the means of getting it.  This might sound condescending, but it’s really just common sense.  If I go to the doctor I know what I want – a quick solution to my pain or sickness; but he’s the one who tells me what I need to achieve that outcome.  It would be silly for me to go in absolutely set on getting a certain prescription and to reject his suggestion that I try something even more effective.

A doctor can get away with that kind of switch because by-and-large we trust them.  As a business owner we need to engender the same sort of confidence in our prospects so that they are convinced we understand their problem, and that our solution will resolve it in the most effective way possible.

At this point, I’m still asking them questions, but by now those questions are about the outcomes they are looking for, and the criteria they have for reaching those outcomes.  For example, with my business coaching clients I help them to identify areas of their business where they are leaking resources because I know that once they see that by doing all these tasks without getting paid they are effectively working for less than they are worth.  Once they find a way to charge for these things, they’ll be able to work less and earn more.  Whether you are plagued by systems that take more time than they save, employees who aren’t delivering the services they ought, or prices that don’t reflect the value you bring to clients, once you can see the need in that area as well as the difference a solution will make, you are likely to find my services attractive – but it’s my job to highlight the value I bring.

If I’ve done a good job at highlighting how I can help you achieve the outcomes you really desire, and demonstrated my ability to deliver that value for others then you are almost certainly going to want to work with me.  Then we can move onto establishing a price and concluding the deal.  On the other hand, if you are still not sure whether you need my product or service – or whether I’m capable of delivering the service at all then there’s not much point moving forward.

The whole sale really depends on this question of establishing your prospect’s need for your service and demonstrating the value it could bring to them.

Meta Description:  As a sales person or business owner it’s your job to find out what your prospects really need so that they achieve the goals they want – and then to help your prospects see that.

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Book your complimentary 30-minute Discovery Session with Chandell.

By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

#TuesdayTips

This post is part of a series filling out details on the 5-step sales process [Link to #16]

  • Building Rapport; [Link to #20]
  • Asking Questions; [ Link to #21]
  • Establishing Need & Value-Add; [Link to #22]
  • Proposing a Solution; [Link to #23]
  • Closing the Sale. [Link to #24]

I’ve listed them sequentially, but of course you are doing many of these steps simultaneously.  While you’re asking questions, you continue to build rapport … and you’ll keep asking questions as  you move into establishing their need for your product or service and highlighting the value it brings to them.

Why Ask Questions?

The reason you want to ask questions is to learn about your prospect – to discover the things that are important to them about a product or service, the problems they are trying to solve, their decision-making strategy, and their level of interest.  All of this information will help you:

  • Decide whether your product/service is suitable for them;
  • Understand which features and benefits are most important to them;
  • Determine how to present your solution;
  • See what time-frame you will be working with.

What Kind of Questions Do You Want to Ask?

Your questions should be directly related to the business of the person you are interviewing and phrased in the the language they use, so you’ll need to tweak the following questions for each prospect:-

  • What do you do? What are you interested in?
  • For what purpose do you want this?
  • What would be a successful outcome if we went ahead with this?
  • Who will make the decision on this matter?
  • How will you know if this product/service is right for you?
  • What is important to you about this?
  • When will you make a decision on this?

– these questions will help you learn about why the person is talking to you, and how seriously they are considering your product/service.  In a business context, it is much better to disqualify a prospect quickly than to spend a lot of time talking to someone who is just getting information from you.  Of course, you don’t want to be too abrupt about this because people move around, their circumstances change, and they may recommend you to others, but if you discover that they have no intention of buying at this time, you will modify your process appropriately.  This is actually very beneficial, because you get the information you need, and you don’t force them into a situation where they are uncomfortable.

One key thing you need to uncover during this process is whether the person you are talking to is a key decision-maker or not.  If they don’t have the power to sign off on the deal then you know that you’re dealing with either a gate-keeper, or simply an ideas-person.  If you are dealing with someone who is just bringing ideas to the table then you don’t want to spend too much time or energy on them.  If it’s a gate-keeper, then your goal has to be to get their attention and interest so that they can introduce you to the decision-makers.

Whatever the situation, asking questions brings clarity and help you get the outcomes you are looking for.

Meta Description:  The quality of your life may be determined by the quality of the questions you ask, but the value of your sales certainly will be.

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Book your complimentary 30-minute Discovery Session with Chandell.

By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

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