#TuesdayTips

The other day I was saddened to hear a parent say to their Scout leader, “I don’t want my child involved in selling items to raise money.  My child is no sales person, he’s a good boy.”

I was even more startled to hear the Scout leader respond, “It’s OK.  This year we aren’t selling chocolates, we’re just asking for donations.”

The parent was happy, but I was filled with a deep uneasiness.  I understand the reluctance to have our children knock on neighbours doors and offer to do chores in return for pay, and I don’t necessarily think we want to be pushing chocolate on people, but do we really want our children to grow up thinking selling is ‘bad’, and sales people are some kind of pariah?  I don’t think so!  And I really hate the idea that it’s better to ask for a donation than to sell something that has value.

We Are All Sales People - and Always Have Been

The reality is that we are all in sales.  We can call it ‘negotiation’, we can call it ‘sharing ideas’, or a million other euphemisms but when push comes to shove every one of us will spend a lot of our lives selling.  We sell when we apply for a job, when we communicate and idea or suggest a project at work, when we go on holidays, persuade our kids to do their homework, decide which restaurant to eat at, and a million other times each day.

The real questions are, how well do we do that selling and how effectively do we attract support and co-operation from others?  In my opinion, the better your skills and ideas, the greater your responsibility to gain the skills needed to sell them.  It’s doing your colleagues, your employer, and your clients an injustice when you can’t communicate your powerful solutions effectively so that others can appreciate them.

Selling Effective Solutions

If you have an effective solution to someone’s real problem, then you should be embarrassed if you withhold the solution.  Maybe you don’t think their problem is important.  Perhaps you think they should keep suffering with that problem.  Or perhaps you are just more concerned that they won’t realise how easily and effectively your produce or service can remove their problem.

Whatever is going through your brain when you decide this person isn’t worth helping, I’d like to challenge you to change it.  Maybe your solution costs more than they are willing to pay – but that is their decision to make, not yours.

In my Confident Closing Workshops [Link here] I invariably have students who are worried about the price of their product or service.  When we discuss this as a group and draw out the value any given product or service brings to its owners the consensus is usually that it is worth more, not less, than the price it is being sold for.  Did you get that?  I don’t recall ever having other people say, “That is way too much for anyone to pay!”

How much is your product or service worth?  That depends on the size and severity of the problem it solves.  Whether it’s solving logistics problems for a large company, helping small business owners become more profitable, or helping obese people lose weight to avoid insulin-dependence, the price people will pay for your solution depends on how painful their problem is.

Price and value are not fixed – they are relative.  Your job as a sales person is to stack the value of the solution you are selling so high that your prospect says, (even as he sits down in shock when he hears the figure you set), “Is that all?”

If you are selling a real solution to a genuine problem then you are helping make your prospects’ lives better, not taking money from them.

Do You Still Hate Selling?

Maybe you’re not convinced yet.  Try this exercise.

Make a list of all the problems your product or service solves.

List the time and money prospects spend on other solutions that are less effective.

How does your solution stack up?  If you can’t find enough value in it, then dig a bit deeper.  If you still can’t find the value in it then maybe it’s time to sell something else.  But if you’ve come up with a substantial list in support of your product’s benefits (which I hope you have), then it’s time to hold your head high, get out there, and sell it for all you’re worth because of the value it will bring to users.

Meta Description:  Selling is part of our everyday life whether we like it or not.  The best way to deal with that reality is to  become comfortable with your need to sell and develop skills that allow you to sell more effectively.

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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

Do you know what the Number 1 reason people don’t set goals is?  It’s because they are afraid of failure.  Sometimes clients say, ‘I don’t know what I want?’ – what they often mean is, ‘I’m not clear that I can achieve what I really want so I’ll pretend I don’t know.’  At other times, they genuinely don’t know because they’ve suppressed their dreaming for so long that they’re not aware of their real thoughts and desires.

Perhaps you fail to achieve your goals as often as you succeed and you wonder why that is.  Today I’d like to explore the link between achieving your goals and giving your unconscious mind clear direction. 

In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) one of the key areas we help people deal with, is letting go negative emotions – the core emotions of anger, fear, guilt, shame, and sadness.  It only takes a few minutes, and usually clients will feel an immediate sense of relief which is fantastic.  The negative emotions are gone, but your unconscious mind needs clear direction on how to think.  If you don’t provide that direction, then your unconscious mind will quickly fall back into the old habits of thinking using those negative patterns.  So, you’ve dealt with the problem – but now you have some re-training to do as well.

It’s the same with S.M.A.R.T. goals and your unconscious mind.  You’ve created your S.M.A.R.T. goal – it is specific, measurable, as-if-now, realistic, and has a time frame  – you’ve visualised it and made it as visceral as possible but you need to communicate that goal clearly to your unconscious mind so that it will help you achieve it.  Your unconscious mind really wants to please you – but you need to tell it how it can do that and you need to make sure the instruction is clearly embedded.

When you create your S.M.A.R.T. goals and visualise them, that’s step #1.  The rest of the process involves reminding your unconscious mind of those goals – that’s where vision boards, pictures, and regular review of those goals comes in.  It may sound like hard work, but the truth is that once your unconscious mind knows what it is aiming for, it will support and help you at every turn.  You’ll find yourself taking the needed decisions and completing your actions much more easily and effortlessly than ever before.  It almost removes the need for self-discipline because your unconscious mind is working for you day-in, day-out, helping you to accomplish everything you ever dreamed of doing.

Think about that!  Think about having your feet on a path towards the goals you really want, and moving forwards almost by instinct – easily and relentlessly.  That’s what happens when you form your goals well, and then harness the power of your unconscious mind to draw you towards them.

Failure to achieve these goals isn’t really an option – because you only fail when you are conflicted about your goals.  This time, you’ve set your goals carefully using the S.M.A.R.T. method, and you’ve given clear directions to your unconscious mind via your visualisation, and frequent reminders.  All of a sudden you’ll find yourself smashing goal after goal as you work on them using a combination of deliberate action and effortless motivation.

Meta Description:  How to achieve your goals every time without conflict and stress by harnessing the power of your unconscious mind.

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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

We all have patterns of communication that are shaped by our experience, our upbringing, and our personality.  Sometimes we make excuses for ourselves: “That’s just the way I am.”  “It always comes out like that.”  “If people want to get upset, that’s their problem.”  Sometimes we worry about the number of broken relationships that are strewn behind us, but mostly we just shrug and move on.

The reality is that you can change the way you communicate – or at least broaden your skills, and as a result you will find more satisfaction in your relationships (both business and social), and a smoother path to your goals.

Can YOU Communicate Well With EVERYONE You Meet?

When I was in my teens, I was bullied.  It was so traumatic that my parents moved me to a new school.  From that time onward my perception about women, and my communications with them were pretty messed up and my ability to understand and communicate with them was fairly limited.  I boxed myself into a certain way of talking to them – if it worked out well, then we got on with each other, if they had a different style of communication it didn’t.

As I said to myself, “There are plenty of men around to work with, and enough women whom I do get on with, so who cares?” and I was really OK with that attitude most of the time.  As I matured I realised that it wasn’t just women I had difficulty communicating with – there were certain men as well, but that was OK because I knew lots of other people had the same sort of issues.

It still wasn’t a real problem, because I did just fine with most people, and could cobble things together, but one day I had a client who was a real challenge.  I had this fantastic sponsorship opportunity handed to me through this woman’s boss and it was great, except that I had to work with Cynthia – and we just did not get on.  We finished the project and it was a success, but working with Cynthia was an incredibly stressful experience for me – and for her, I imagine.

It was then I started to realise how important communication was if I wanted to make my life easy and fun, and I started to look for tools to make communication easier.

Resourceful Communication Leads to Positive Relationships

Do You Want to Make Your Life Easier and More Fun?  Most people I know do, and it sounds good to me!  As I mentioned above, for a long time I thought I was an ‘OK’ communicator (which I was), and that that was the best I could expect – but then I stumbled across Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).  Apart from being fascinated by the neurology side of things, and the processes that changed my thinking and my life, I was also excited by the possibilities for expanding my communication toolkit.

I realised that I (and most of my friends, family, and colleagues) were singularly unresourceful when it came to communicating with people who were not like us.  However, I also discovered that there was something I could do about it.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) teaches a variety of techniques to help you communicate better.  Many of them are just common sense, and great communicators through the ages have used them to win agreement and sway crowds, as well as to smooth the path of their private interactions.  The problem is, they’re not commonly taught and most of the world doesn’t learn how to communicate effectively to a variety of people.

Imagine Your Life Without Misunderstanding!

Play a game with me for a minute.  What would happen if you could pick the perfect way to speak and interact with everyone you met, so that they would immediately feel attracted to you, and desire to please you?  Would that make life easier when you checked in at the airport?  When you talked to the car sales man?  When you disagreed with a colleague?  When you were meeting with a client or prospect?

I know it makes an enormous difference when I make the effort to develop rapport using the tools Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) provides.  When I am able to manage my communications so that the other person really hears my words no matter how different we are then life becomes much easier.  When I can sift through the words they speak, and hear what another person is really saying, then suddenly a lot of misunderstandings simply vanish – both in business and in your personal life.

We Are ResourceFUL When We Have Resources

What communication resources do you have at your disposal?  Many people have only one style of communication, and sometimes you’ll hear them say, “That’s just me. I can’t help it if others get upset.”  Look, I get that.  But what if expanding your communication repertoire builds your circle of friends, or your work opportunities … You’d be willing to flex a little bit, wouldn’t you?

Here are just a few of the resources you can use to expand your repertoire: –

  • Observation – could you make the other person comfortable by varying your speed and style of delivery?
  • Eye Patterns – are you using the right metaphors and language to appeal to this person?
  • Language – are you appealing to their preferred internal representation system?
  • Mannerisms – could you attract their attention by using bigger gestures, or smaller ones?

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) teaches all of these and more.  We cover them at one level in our 2-day Confident Closing Workshop, and our NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner Trainings delve deeper into them, equipping you to communicate successfully with individuals and groups in any context.

The primary reason for building your communication repertoire is simply that it will make your life smoother and more fun if you don’t keep coming up against prickly personalities who drive you crazy – you’ll still meet them, but you’ll be able to deal with them productively and pleasantly.

Meta Description:  How often do you sabotage a relationship because you are intent on doing things ‘your way’ or not at all? Being resourceful in the way you communicate with others can change your life.

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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 was about 14 when I started selling Nutrimetics to my friends at school.  They were polite and sort of interested but I didn’t get many sales during lunch hour.  A couple of them thought their Mums might be interested and held parties at home – and that was when my business really took off.  I won sales awards, medals, and you name, it … but I also learned an important lesson – it’s much easier to sell to people who are thirsting for a solution, than to people who are just showing polite interest.

I took that lesson to heart and it helped me in all my later sales experiences – whether I was actually selling products or services, or sharing ideas.  Polite interest just wastes your time, and the other person’s time as well.  If you’re in a social situation then you can move on to other topics of interest.  If you are in a business situation then polite interest just wastes your time, and robs you of other opportunities.

Don’t Be Afraid of ‘No’! - It Might Even Be Your Best Friend

It is far better to spend your time talking to people who have the problem your service solves and the money to spend on your solution, rather than with people who are just being polite – because after all, business is about sales, not just interest.  That’s why it is always good to elicit a ’no’ response sooner rather than later if the person you are talking to is really not a good candidate for your product. 

So, I don’t want to make people’s decisions for them, and I really want to give them the information they need – but how do I open the door so they are willing to listen.

5-Steps Sales Process That Works.

Establish Rapport. The easiest way to do this is to match and mirror their behaviour, or identify their preferred internal representation system and use that to communicate with your prospect. Without rapport, it’s harder to elicit the information you need to determine whether you and the prospect are actually a good fit, and if you don’t seem to be getting anywhere in establishing try to work out why.
Ask Questions. You can use questions to continue to build rapport but you are really listening carefully so that you learn about your prospect’s problems and concerns.  You’ll be asking questions throughout the interview so that you can discover what they value, and what their decision-making process is, and trying to uncover their objections so that you’ve answered them effectively before you come to the point of closing the deal. These questions will help your prospect feel that they were heard, and they will help you know whether the person is actually a real candidate for your product.
Establish Value and Need. Your questions will have shown you whether this person actually need your product or service.  At this point you are making some decisions on their behalf.  If you realise that you can’t add enough value to this particular business for it to be worthwhile that’s okay – you can tell the other person how you feel and end the conversation.  You never want to go into a deal so hungry that you need to get it at any cost. If you can’t add enough value to make it worthwhile for the prospect then you’re better off walking away.  If you do make a deal under those circumstances neither of you will be happy with the outcome.
Propose Solution. Hopefully you’ve taken all the time you need to ask questions and listen to their answers, because by the time you get to this fourth step in the sales process you should be ready to propose your tailored solution succinctly and clearly.
Your prospect should be nodding agreement at this point and demonstrating that they can see the value you are offering to them specifically.  As you outline your solution the prospect should feel confident that it will solve their specific problem, not just be the package you happen to have in your cart ready to unload on them.
Seal the Deal. This is the final step in the process – whether it involves signing a contract or a verbal agreement.  If you’ve done your job well, the outcome won’t be a surprise to either party because your will be offering your prospect a custom solution that will truly fit their needs.

I’ve taught this 5-step Sales Process to hundreds of people in corporate sales trainings and through my Confident Closing Workshops [LINK HERE] and I usually receive this kind of feedback:  “By the time I actually proposed a solution I had all the information I needed to offer a tailored solution using my prospect’s terminology.  Their ‘yes’ was almost instant and price became a non-issue.”

This 5-Step Sales Process is one of the easiest ways to move your closing rate from average (or below average), so astronomical – and it also takes the sting out of rejection.  Most of the time, you’ve already determined that this person is not a good fit before they get as far as saying ’no’.

Meta Description: How to move your sale closing rate from average to astronomical with a simple 5-step process that doesn’t rely on scripts or programming

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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

I’ve already talked about the power of your unconscious mind [Link to Post], and how it influences your behaviour, so today I’d like to take a closer look at how we can become  friends with our unconscious mind and use it to help us achieve our goals, rather than blocking them.

Listening to your Unconscious Mind

Have you ever really listened to the things you say to yourself – the words and tone of voice you use when no-one else is listening?  What are you saying?  Are you speaking words of encouragement, hope and power, or are you constantly criticising yourself and belittling yourself?

Negative self-talk is one of the most common causes of depression.  Therapists know that if they listen carefully to what their patients are saying to themselves they will be able to understand 90% of the problems besetting them.  The problem is that often patients get caught up in the rehearsal of these negative conversations, emotions and experiences and they can’t let them go.  That’s really where I was, when I struggled through my depression – every week when I met with my therapist we would go over the same ground, and I’d feel worse.  He would try to help me see the lies I was telling myself, but somehow I missed the road out until I went to the Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) training.

One of things I love about Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is that it propels you forward.  It doesn’t leave you wallowing in your misery but offers you a clear choice.

Take responsibility for your life, or take the consequences!

We can either be ‘At Cause’ in our lives, or we can be ‘At Effect’ – the creators, or the victims of our circumstances.  I don’t know about you, but the idea of being a victim doesn’t appeal to me … on the other hand sometimes I’m not all that keen about taking responsibility for things either.  And that is where we can call on our unconscious mind to help us.

We can’t turn back the clock and undo the things that we’ve experienced, but we can always choose the direction we’ll take moving forward.

Make Friends With Your Unconscious Mind And Let It Work For You

Once you become aware of your unconscious mind, you will start to hear what it is saying to you.  If it is encouraging you to keep moving forward, to stick your neck out and take some risks, and feeding you positive thoughts and emotions then you’re probably in pretty good shape.  But maybe things are not quite so rosy and your unconscious mind is tearing you down with negative ideas and feedback.  Don’t worry, you’ve taken an important first step – now you know that the part of you which should be your biggest cheerleader is letting you down.

You spend a lot of time listening to your unconscious mind, so you need to feed it positive thoughts, ideas, emotions and images – because whatever you feed it, it will send back to you quietly and without making a fuss.  That’s why we need to choose our mental diet at least as carefully as we choose the food we eat.  A lot of people take great care about the food they consume, but they fill their minds with random programs from the TV, radio, or magazines. 

Your thoughts shape your future just as surely as the food you eat shapes your body – so take time to consider what you are putting into your unconscious mind.  They say we become like the five people we spend most time with – that time could be spent with them in person, or via TV, CD or books.  Who are your 5 top influencers?

Meta Description: Our unconscious mind is a very powerful influence, but we can use it help us achieve everything that we are looking for in our personal and professional lives.

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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

Pricing – Value – Money … this is always one of the hardest things to determine.  How do you set a value on your service?  Most of my life as an employee there wasn’t much room for negotiation.  In corporate sales, I was always paid a decent base salary plus commission that were pretty much set by the company I worked for.  In one position, I was paid a very generous salary and achieved a great deal more than the target outcome, but then my employer decided I was too expensive.

In my own business, I come across people who will debate the price, then experience the value and tell me I’m worth more.  I come across other people who  walk away as soon as they hear the price – and never even think about the value.  I know I’m not alone in this, because just about every business owner I talk to faces the same struggle.

Mindset is important because business is 80% psychology and only 20% strategy.  Most of the business owners I work with have their strategy pretty well under control, but the psychology is where they get bogged down.  I hear a lot of people saying things like, ‘I’m just not sure that I’m worth what it is that I’m asking,’ or ‘I always feel the need to discount,’ or ‘I feel the need to actually give more than I’ve agreed to’.  Others use statements like, ‘I don’t know how to sell my product – I’m really good at telling them about it, but when it comes to asking for the money, I really struggle with that’.

The problem is not the product or service they deliver, it’s their understanding of the value they bring to the table.  Mastering the mind-set of the confident closer gets rid of that procrastination, get rid of that overwhelm, and gets rid of that doubt about your value so you project confidence – and are received with confidence.

Your Perception IS the Reality You Project

When you present your business it’s really like a performance –  and the purpose of a performance is to influence the audience and move them.  The thing is that we don’t think about business presentations that way, we think about them as a means to an end, or more income, or reaching a target.   You know, I’ve got this appointment today, I’m meeting this person and I’ll try to convince them to buy.   We don’t usually see it as reaching out to influence people and they pick that up.

You see, the vital fact that you need to understand is that perception is projection. You may have heard that before, but I want you to really slow down and think about it.  Perception is projection. … But you are unable to perceive behaviour in someone else if you are not capable of it yourself. 

You’ll have heard the comment that when you point your finger at someone and call them names, there are three fingers pointing back at yourself.  That’s because the faults we’re most aware of in others are the ones we are prone to, and it’s often the reason why parents are so hard on their kids – they’re projecting their own traits and so they’re hyper-sensitive to them in others.

What About Josie?

Remember Josie, the hairdresser I wrote about the other day [Link to Part 1] – she had fallen into the vicious cycle of discounting her services to attract clients.  The problem was that this meant that she needed to see more clients to make the same money and every time she did this her perception of the value of her service plunged lower.  I could see that before long Josie would have discounted her Salon out of existence.

I have to admit that I staged a scene to help her understand the value of her work.  You see, Josie really was a great hairdresser, and she ran a great Salon but she was seeing her work as something people chose because of price.  I sent a friend in who really needed to see a great hairdresser who would help her find a hairstyle that looked great and fit her lifestyle.  I knew that Josie could help her, and I asked this friend to be really enthusiastic and pay more than she was asked IF (and only if) she was genuinely happy with the outcome.

Well, Sarah was delighted with her appearance once Josie had finished with her hair and shown her how to style it easily.  She raved about Josie’s efforts, she admired herself in the mirror, and when Josie told her how much the service cost Sarah was (genuinely) outraged.  “You can’t charge that little!  It’s impossible!” she said.  “You’re an artist and you should charge like one.”  Sarah paid twice the price that Josie asked and as she walked out, she told a client who was just walking in, “I have just had the amazing service and the best value haircut I’ve ever imagined!” – and she meant it.

What Happened Next?

We’d already worked out what Josie needed to charge in our coaching sessions.  The problem was that Josie was convinced that no-one would pay that much.  Sarah’s comment gave Josie the courage to quote the price we’d agreed on to the client who had walked in as Sarah left.  Her response gave her the courage to do it again … and again … and it wasn’t long before she really did discover the joy of owning a business.

The point of telling this story is simply that Josie is like many business owners – they can’t charge the prices they need to, because they don’t value themselves as they ought and Perception IS Projection!

Meta Description: Pricing-Value-Money – how your understanding of these can lead to success or failure and how they can turn your business around.

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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

It’s a pretty consistent fact around the world that approximately 50% of small businesses fail within the first two years of operation and only about 8% of them make it to 10 years.  Michael Gerber discusses the reasons for this at length in “The E-Myth Revisited”, but I’d like to discuss it briefly here and tell you a story to illustrate it.

Are You A Technician?

A lot of small businesses are started by ‘technicians’ who are very good at what they do, and angered when they think that their employer doesn’t value them enough.  The accountant who leaves a big firm to start his own practice because he knows he’s being charged at $180 per hour, but only receiving $90, the chiropractor or physiotherapist who knows what each patient is being charged, but only receives a percentage of that fee, or my friend Josie, who is a hairdresser.

Josie worked in Angie’s Salon and she was paid $15 an hour.  At the end of every week Josie saw that her income is far less than the total takings that Angie has in revenue.  She worked out what each client paid for her services and compared that with her weekly wage and said to herself, “How come Angie gets paid this much and I’m only getting $15 an hour and I work much harder than her.  I’m a much better hairdresser than she is and I see more clients!” 

After a while Josie decided to start her own Salon. She knew that she is a really great hairdresser, in fact, she loves hairdressing so much she told herself that this would not be work!  She worked really hard, put in long hours (all that administration as well as hairdressing!) and to encourage people to come in she started discounting her services. Josie was now working much harder now than when she was employed by Angie.  When we sat down together and looked at Josie’s numbers in a Business Coaching session, we worked out that her new pay rate as a business owner was $1.20 an hour.

You see, what Josie didn’t understand were all the other tasks that Angie did behind the scenes.  Things like rent, utility bills, doing the payroll, looking at how she’s actually going to get business walking in through the door, (Angie’s clients didn’t just show up with their money on the day she opened the Salon!), and managing stock levels.  Josie only saw the big picture with all the zeros at the end of the week’s takings, she didn’t even consider the rest of the picture.

In this classic example of the standard Small Business Owner Josie went from scoffing over $15 per hour as an employee to buying herself a very stressful job for the bargain price of $1.20 per hour!  Wasn’t that a great move?

Josie was down – but she was not out!  She had signed up for a 2-day Confident Closing workshop that I ran because she was determined not to go back to being an employee.  She was going to make this work!

We started by laying out all the bad news … the tasks she had to do, the bills she had to pay, etc – and then the good news … the clients she already had, the staff she had working for her and so on.  The picture was pretty ugly, but with all the facts in front of her, Josie could see clearly why she was feeling so stressed and she could make a plan to get out of it.

Find out what happened next … Part 2

Meta Description: What many small businesses owners don’t consider before they start their business and how this leads to despair and failure.

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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

Do you sometimes feel under-valued?  Do you sometimes feel that people would buy your product or service if they only realised what it could do for them?  Many people do.  I used to feel that way all the time (sometimes I still do, but I know the problem lies with me), and I frequently talk to friends and clients who feel that way.

The easiest way to find out whether other people are hearing and understanding what you say is to listen to their response.  At networking meetings, people will often say to me, “Most people don’t value my work for what it is worth.”  The reality is that they have not managed to communicate the value of their work to others.  It’s a pretty natural response when we don’t get the interest and buy-in we’re expecting, but the truth is that there is something you can do about it – and that something is to take responsibility for the response you get.

The Meaning Of The Communication Is The Response You Get

I’d like to illustrate this with a true story about Sally, a client of mine who was having trouble relating to her co-workers.  One day she walked into my office and said, “I’m so over my boss, he is impossibly inconsiderate!”  After a series of questions to uncover what the heart of the issue was for Sally, I learned that she had been in a meeting with her boss and had stated, “It’s a little bit draughty in here, isn’t it?” and then got very hurt and angry when her boss didn’t offer her a glass of water.

Somehow, when Sally had said, “It’s a little bit draughty in here, isn’t it?” she had expected her boss to understand that she was thirsty and needed a drink.

Now before you say to yourself, “Well, clearly Sally has a problem!”  I’d like you ask yourself if you’ve ever made an indirect request hoping that your friend, partner, or colleague would understand that you are asking for help.  You know what’s really interesting?  This is how we communicate every day. You hear people saying, “I told her, she has to know – she has to know that I’m upset with her!”

“What did you say?” you’ll ask, and they respond, “Oh she just knows, I’m sure of it.”

“Don’t be!”

The real meaning of the communication is the response you get.  If her boss doesn’t get Sally a glass of water then she can’t have made it clear that she wanted a glass of water.  If your significant other doesn’t change their behaviour, you probably didn’t tell them clearly what the problem was and what response you were looking for. 

If it happens once, the problem might be the other person – if it’s happening often then it’s probably time to take a good look at how clearly you communicate.

How Does This Apply to Sales?

In a sales context, that translates to, “If someone doesn’t want to pay your fee then YOU didn’t make it clear enough how valuable your services are to them.”

Now whose fault is it if the client doesn’t perceive the value of your service?  Is it the client’s fault or is it your fault?

Many people don’t like to take that sort of responsibility on themselves.  If you are taking charge of your own life and living at cause rather than at effect … if you’re empowered to influence others, then you should be willing to realise that you haven’t communicated in the most effective way that matches the needs of the person you’re talking to.

If you feel that prospects who are a great fit for your services aren’t taking you seriously then look at the value proposition you are sharing with them, the words you are choosing, and the mindset that backs up everything you say.

Meta Description:  Do you ever complain that people don’t understand or appreciate your product or service as much as they should?  NLP teaches that the meaning of your communication is the response you get and you can change the response by changing your flexibility.

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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

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to get on really well with almost everyone, while others are constantly complaining about the way other people treat them?  The answer probably likes in the flexibility of their communication system.

I used to have a very fixed idea about how people who liked me would communicate – it included smiles, positive words, and general encouragement (all good things, by the way).  The problem with my inflexibility in this area was that if someone was pre-occupied and didn’t really notice me one day I’d think I must have offended them which made me feel bad, and try to make things right.

As I studied and practiced Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) I realised that the problem wasn’t that I had an overpowering desire to be liked – the real problem was that I had such limited flexibility in my communications that I couldn’t really distinguish between people who were pre-occupied and people who didn’t like me.

We all have some people around us who we genuinely dislike and disagree with, but we also have a much a much wider group of people with whom we just ‘don’t really feel comfortable’ – and this is mostly a question of flexibility in communication.

Glass, Perspex, and Rejection

Which is stronger: – glass or perspex?  Most people in my Confident Closing workshops will say glass – although the engineering / practical types will ask questions about thickness and treatments.  Theoretically it’s true – glass is the stronger substance, but it’s not as resilient as perspex.  Resilience is a key characteristic in communication and relationships.

Because glass is brittle, if you put enough weight and pressure on it – it’s going to break.  Whereas the perspex has got some flexibility and so it’s actually going to be able to withstand more pressure.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a business owner, or just want better social relationships you need to become more like the perspex than glass if you want to survive and thrive.  You can guarantee that challenges will come your way at one point or another.  If you’re flexible, you’re able to deal with the situation more congruently, more resourcefully.

Communicating So That Others Hear You

When you focus your communication on the other person, you’ll quickly realise the truth of the Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) principle that says, “The person or the system with the most flexibility will be the one that controls the system.”  If you want to control the outcome of your conversations and sales meetings then you have to able and willing to respond appropriately in any given situation.  This means you have to be flexible in your use of communication tools – not tied to a script or even an outcome, but focused on the other person.

When you focus on your prospect, or your client and really listen to their communications – the words they use, their gestures, and tone of voice – you’ll pick up the cues you need to close more deals.  In some cases you’ll realise that your product or service isn’t appropriate for them, or that they’re just humouring you and that’s fine too, because the quicker you pick that up, the faster you can get out of there, and the less time you’ll waste.

What Do I Mean When I Talk About “Flexibility in Communication”?

We all have a preferred style of communication based on our filters [Link to post].  It doesn’t mean that this is the only way we communicate, it just means it’s our preferred style – and that style includes our choice of words, the speed at which we speak, and the gestures and tones we use.  The more we can use matching and mirroring to reflect the style preferred by the person we’re talking to, the more likely we both are to come away from our interaction feeling understood.

Flexibility involves understanding our own preferred communication style, and become observant when we are around others so that we can become aware of their preferred style of communication.  The more we do this, the more we will find that others like and understand us, and we like and understand them.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) focuses heavily on recognising communication patterns, and it’s one of the things we teach in our Confident Closing Workshop at Life Puzzle.

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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

Our brain is assaulted by over 11million bps (bits per second) of information, but it can only process a tiny fraction of that – 126 bps to be precise.  So how do you decide which bits are worthy of attention?  That’s the role of your filters.  If you didn’t have filters, you would go into total overwhelm because of the differential between the volume of information that is coming at you, and the amount you can actually process.

You may be wondering what this has to do with your Professional Relationships … and the answer is that your ability to understand your own filters, and the filters other people use will dramatically affect your professional relationships and, therefore, your professional success.  

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) has a very clear and effective model that demonstrates how this works:

We interpret the external world through our five senses – through sight, touch, sound, smell, and taste.   Then your unconscious mind takes over.  It filters them through your memories, your beliefs about who you are, your values and morals that you have accepted from your parents or the surrounding culture, your language and whatever other filters you have in place, so that it can select the 126 bits that are relevant to you and group them in chunks of seven to nine pieces of information and make sense of them.

Therefore, your interpretation of those eleven million bits of information is going to be unique – completely different to any other person’s interpretation of the same information – and it will happen instantaneously and unconsciously.

Great … But how does that help me in my professional communications?

Imagine if you could instantly create connections with other people – connections and rapport that aren’t necessarily based on common interests, long-term interactions, or any other factors that you have no control over.  Would that make it easier to close sales and handle clients?

It did for me, and it has for many of my clients.  You see, our unconscious mind creates these filters so that we are able to handle the sheer volume of information that is coming at us, and we create a picture in our minds made up of just the information we decided to keep.  In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) terminology we call this an internal representation.  This is as unique to you as your thumbprint – no two people’s filters are the same – and it explains why two eye-witness can give completely different accounts of the same event.  We all delete the information that we don’t think is relevant and we distort and generalise based on the filters we have developed so that we can reduce the information to manageable levels.  

Your internal representation is basically a mental picture about what any given situation means to you.  The details in this mental picture influence how you feel, which determines your physical response to the situation.  Then you use that mental picture to form a response.  If you are talking to someone your response will indicate what that picture means to you.

As a listener this means that if you pay attention to someone’s language, you can quickly learn about their filters.  Thus, whenever you are talking to someone you can speak to them in a way that bypasses their filters.

Language, Learning Styles and Preferred Communication Models

In the ongoing debate about education, you may have heard some of the discussion about learning styles.  I don’t actually agree with most of the discussion around this area.  The prevailing attitude puts people in boxes, rather than opening up new options and making them resources and I think that’s a criminal thing to do to anyone – especially a child!

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) respects people’s preferences – and acknowledges that if we want to build rapport with others, we need to go over to where they are, not expect them to come to us.  Communication styles are very similar to learning styles – we all have a preferred way of filtering the world – through visual, auditory, or kinaesthetic modes (and both our preferred learning style and our preferred communication style are usually linked).  If we can quickly discover a person’s preferred style of communication, and use language that reflects it we can quickly build rapport with almost anyone.

The best communicators in the world – the people whose words everyone listens to, even if they disagree with their ideas – have very flexible communication styles.  If you are speaking to a group, using language that resonates with a variety of communication models is ideal, if you are just speaking to a single person you will find it much easier to build your relationship if you identify their preferred mode of language, and use it with them.

Their pose will quickly change from resistant to responsive.  When we teach this in workshops and our students go out and practice identifying and using the appropriate model we usually get an excited phone call within a day or two from people who say, “I can’t believe what a change this has made!  I talked with X, who is usually quite stiff and resistant, and closed the deal we’ve been negotiating for 3 months.

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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

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