I received my first official sales training from a man who believed in being very assertive, almost aggressive. At the time, this conflicted with my reserved nature, and for the next 6 months I didn’t even make a sale.
I knew I had to change my approach. Meanwhile, I realized that I had to make two sales, first myself, for my client to “believe” what I might have to say or recommend; then the second sale was the actual service you were providing.
With this understanding, I began to work on creating reports. The system I created was so effective that I was stunned. Customers would buy just about anything and everything you recommend. I knew my system worked!
I then proceeded to teach other people in other industries, selling everything from new kitchens to carpet cleaning, from blinds to jewelry, and the system worked, beyond my wildest expectations.
The “system” is based on this principle from Dale Carnegie’s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People …
People are 10,000 times more interested in themselves than they are in you (or your product or service).
Too often in sales, the salesperson asks a few questions to learn more about their customers’ interests, then with that knowledge, makes a few recommendations. Then the seller does the usual “try to close the sale.”
This process is flawed for a number of reasons. First of all, the seller has generally not earned the right to speak or give an opinion, as he has not established the first step of selling, selling himself to earn the right to speak and recommend.
If you have a sufficient relationship with a client and I mean the same relationship that you would have with a friend of 10 years, then the client will “trust” you and your opinion. What often happens is that the seller creates his own objections by making recommendations too early before a sufficient report is established.
Nobody likes a stubborn person and this is often the trap salespeople fall into, who do not produce a sufficient report before making a recommendation.
So how do you build a massive relationship, in just 7 seconds?
The best method I teach others to use is to understand people’s DISC profiles. DISC profiles have been around since 1920 when Dr. Marston looked at people’s behavior in 4 different categories.
These are … extroverted and task-oriented, extroverted and people-oriented, task-oriented and reserved, and people-oriented and reserved.
What that means is that around 50% of the population is task oriented and around 50% is people oriented. Also that 50% of people are extroverts and 50% are reserved.
By understanding these figures, I learned that being friendly with a customer could annoy them, as 50% of people are task-oriented people who get upset with friendly salespeople. They don’t feel the need to please the person they buy from.
While the other 50% of the population are people who must like the person they buy from or they will not buy from them in principle. You will be surprised how accurate it is, ask your partner or friends if you do not believe me and you will see that it is very true.
Now, the secret to building a good relationship is to be friendly, whether you are a friendly or people-oriented person. Stop trying to be friendly if you are not reciprocal. It takes time to learn this skill, it took me about 6 months to choose which DISC profile a person is accurately and consistently.
Once I learned this, the rewards were incredible. Even without knowing how to “close the sale”, I had clients who wanted to buy from me saying things like “how do we work together”, “how do we get started”, “when can we start”, all before they knew the price. of my service! I found myself needing to say, ‘Do you mind if I describe the investment before I start?’
With this technique I realized that I had created a “how not to get objection” sales system, where there are simply no objections! This is in contrast to trying to overcome the objections written in dozens of sales books. Rapport is key, and you create a relationship when you are listening, not when you are speaking.
Obviously, there is much more to this system than I can talk about here, in fact it is a comprehensive book full of information, but understanding a person’s DISC profile is the most powerful thing you can learn in sales as you are learning to communicate. with people in their own language.
There is another step to selling with a DISC profile, which is to sell to outgoing rather than reserved people.
However, that is much more complicated than the space here allows.
Try to learn more about DISC profiles and study it. You can get to the stage where you can choose a person’s profile in less than 7 seconds, even over the phone! When you know and communicate with someone’s DISC profile, the rewards are fantastic.
DISC can be used for sales, but is very effective when used with other business training services, such as small business management, recruiting, and leadership.
