Month: September 2007

Are You New to NLP?

 

Jacques Werth
High Probability Selling

A software salesperson related the following story about one of his recent sales appointments. 

“I went into a meeting with a prospect in his office, and our conversation started with him asking, ‘Tell me again what your software does.”

As he spoke I noticed the prospect, whose elbows had been on the arms of his chair, was moving his hands down alongside the arms of his chair. So I moved my hands down alongside the arms of my chair. 

Our conversation continued, and then the prospect pulled his chair back from his desk and crossed his legs.  Then I crossed my legs in the same manner.

A few minutes later, the prospect leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers. 

About a minute later, I put my hands behind my head, mirroring his movements. The conversation was going well as I explained the benefits of our software system.

A short time later, the prospect put his left hand back down on the arm of his chair and, with his right hand, reached around the back of his head grabbing his left ear. 

Then, I tried to emulate the prospect’s new movement and the prospect interrupted me, saying, “No, it’s the right hand holding the left ear… Are you new to NLP?” 

Savvy prospects like this one are becoming more and more prevalent.   They know a technique when they see one, even the “subtle” ones.  Selling to these prospects requires an entirely different way of thinking about sales, instead of learning another technique of persuasion.

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Jacques Werth – High Probability Selling

Copyright 2007.

 

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

 

I Just Learned a New Business Principle

 

By Paul Bunn
High Probability Selling

During lunch today, I went to my optometrist in an attempt to get my classes repaired.  It was a minor repair.  I could have done the work once I purchased the parts.  The only problem was that my optometrist’s business is set up to facilitate the purchase of new glasses. 

Customers that want repairs or parts, no matter how minor, are directed to the department that sells frames and lenses.  I waited for about 30 minutes, anxiously waiting for someone to assist me.  Nothing happened. 

I don’t necessarily blame the salespeople.  After all, why handle a minor repair job when a much more immediately lucrative set of glasses might be sold?  And they were just following the owners’ business model.  And I clearly didn’t fit their model. 

And that model has a flaw.  The awareness of what customers, in my case existing long-term customers, want…other than selling a new pair of glasses to us every year or so…was somehow overlooked.

Once I realized that, unless I was willing to wait another hour or two, my repair was not going to happen at that establishment I went to a nearby mall and had Pearle Vision do it in less than 5 minutes.  I walked in, said what I wanted, they fixed the glasses, at no charge.  Easy.  Quick.  Apparently a good fit to their business model.

While at the Pearle location, I noticed something else.  Their counter displays stated the key features of their services – instead of the latest cool frames to buy – the one I noticed most was a 60-day complete satisfaction guarantee.  From personal experience, my existing optometrist doesn’t have that either.

My next glasses purchase will likely be from Pearle.  I wonder if my (old) optometrist, a long established neighborhood-type place that I purchased from every year for 10 years or so, is aware of that.  

Events like this one get me thinking about how well we do at being aware of what our customers want, versus what we want to sell.

Do you know what your existing customers want? 

Does your business model make it easy for both of you to find out?  And deliver?

Have you tested it lately?

 

 

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Paul Bunn – High Probability Selling

Copyright 2007.

 

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

Are You Missing Your Best Niche Market?

By Jacques Werth
High Probability Selling

Every salesperson has a great niche market that 99 percent aren’t even aware of.  The concept of a niche market is not new.  The meaning of the term is as varied as the number of sales, marketing and business people trying to identify, define or pursue a niche.  If you find the right niche, your sales volume will skyrocket.

A typical niche may be a group of millionaires that own helicopters, or an affinity group of retired doctors and lawyers, or large-scale forested landowners.  The list is only limited by our imaginations and exposure to the worlds within the world around us.

There is one niche market, however, that exists for virtually every salesperson or businessperson out there.  And it is not defined by commonly used demographic factors.  It is a segment of nearly every market that goes virtually unnoticed, except by the best salespeople.

That niche is made up of prospects that, thanks to the information age, already want the benefits of your type of product or service.  If asked in an appropriate way, they would actually confirm that they want what you’re selling, and that they will do business with you if you can meet their requirements to do so.

These are their “psychographics”:

  1. They’ve figured out why they want the benefits of your product or service.
  2. They don’t need to be sold to.
  3. They don’t respond favorably to persuasion, however subtle.
  4. They don’t want (or need) to be educated about your offering.
  5. They are not merely interested in what you’re offering.  They are ready to make commitments to do business.
  6. One of the things that determines who they buy from is whether they trust and respect the salesperson they’re buying from.  Whether they “like you” is unimportant.

They are out there. Right now.  In your market.  In your industry.  Hoping to encounter a salesperson that they can trust and respect, and do business with in a direct, open and transparent way.  You need a prospecting system that is designed to communicate in a way that allows them to identify themselves. 

Now you have options that are not just variations on the theme of selling as most people know it.

You can sell in a way that requires attempting to make people, most of whom aren’t buyers, into customers…or…sell in a way that requires finding the people that are buyers and making the determination of whether or not it is mutually beneficial to do business.

What do you want to do?

 

 

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Jacques Werth – High Probability Selling

Copyright 2007.

 

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion