Selling is Like Dating
Selling is Like Dating
Assume that you’re at a party and you spot an attractive person standing alone. Visually, you are intrigued. Assume again that both of you are unattached and you’d like to snag a date with this person. Would you go up and say “Hello, my name is ______, would you like to go to dinner with me next Friday?” Absolutely not, because you recognize that this would rush the process and risks an immediate rejection. To increase your odds of securing the date, you enter into a routine to improve your odds of securing that yes response. Selling is like that too: it’s a systematic process that requires you to establish rapport and clear some hurdles first before asking for the order.
Here are the steps to this process:
1.) Generate rapport and establish credibility
People do business with people they like and feel they can trust. Since you are looking to secure a new business client, your job is to make the customer want to do business with you on two levels, rationally and emotionally. To meet their emotional needs, you will have to make a favorable impression within the first thirty seconds. After making a favorable impression, focus your attention on listening intently and show genuine interest in them. Show lot’s of enthusiasm.
Successful sales people establish rapport quickly with a prospect and adapt their approach based on the prospects personality type, not vice versa. If your customer is relaxed and low-key, be casual and low-key. If your customer is strictly business and in a “New York hurry,” eliminate the small talk and cut to the chase. If they are passionate about their business or hobby or kids, go with the flow. Net, you need to adapt your approach to the situation and their personality type. Approaching everyone the same will not work.
Adapting your approach is generally two dimensional. The first factor is speed and pace. This is generally easy to gauge and should be evident before you meet with your client in person. The second factor is task and/or relationship oriented, which stems from their personality. If the person is left brained and makes decisions based primarily on information, establish your creditability and focus on your deliverables. If they are relationship oriented, show more interest in them and their business. Be interested, not interesting. Give them a soapbox to talk. Focus on their needs and listen intently.
2.) Gather additional information
Now that you’ve established a common ground and created some mutual interest, it’s time to gather up some information beyond what you’ve gleaned from your previous phone conversation.
During this process, you are trying to understand their key business issues, organizational structure, demonstrate areas that you can quickly add value (or save money), complexity of the assignment, and their true objectives. During this exchange, focus on the benefits of your service and how it will help them.
3.) Propose action and get them involved
The next hurdle in this process is to recommend solutions to the client’s problems and concerns. Guide the prospect by focusing on the benefits that are most important to them. If you provide these benefits in a unique or proprietary way, emphasize this.
After you propose your fees, be prepared to overcome some common objections.
4.) Gain agreement and secure a financial commitment
Once you secure their agreement to your proposal or services, stop selling and transition into execution mode. If you continue to focus on the selling, you may uncover an issue that you can not resolve and potentially lose the sale.
Some degree of financial commitment is important at the end of every sales transaction. If you haven’t secured a bonafide agreement at the end of your meeting, secure a commitment to some course of action.
Selling is Like Dating - To learn more about this author, visit Hugh Duffy's Website.
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Selling your services is in many ways, analogous to the dating process. There are several steps in the process and if you attempt to rush the process by skipping a step or two, you will most likely face rejection.
Assume that you’re at a party and you spot an attractive person standing alone. Visually, you are intrigued. Assume again that both of you are unattached and you’d like to snag a date with this person. Would you go up and say “Hello, my name is ______, would you like to go to dinner with me next Friday?” Absolutely not, because you recognize that this would rush the process and risks an immediate rejection. To increase your odds of securing the date, you enter into a routine to improve your odds of securing that yes response. Selling is like that too: it’s a systematic process that requires you to establish rapport and clear some hurdles first before asking for the order.
Here are the steps to this process:
1.) Generate rapport and establish credibility
People do business with people they like and feel they can trust. Since you are looking to secure a new business client, your job is to make the customer want to do business with you on two levels, rationally and emotionally. To meet their emotional needs, you will have to make a favorable impression within the first thirty seconds. After making a favorable impression, focus your attention on listening intently and show genuine interest in them. Show lot’s of enthusiasm.
Successful sales people establish rapport quickly with a prospect and adapt their approach based on the prospects personality type, not vice versa. If your customer is relaxed and low-key, be casual and low-key. If your customer is strictly business and in a “New York hurry,” eliminate the small talk and cut to the chase. If they are passionate about their business or hobby or kids, go with the flow. Net, you need to adapt your approach to the situation and their personality type. Approaching everyone the same will not work.
Adapting your approach is generally two dimensional. The first factor is speed and pace. This is generally easy to gauge and should be evident before you meet with your client in person. The second factor is task and/or relationship oriented, which stems from their personality. If the person is left brained and makes decisions based primarily on information, establish your creditability and focus on your deliverables. If they are relationship oriented, show more interest in them and their business. Be interested, not interesting. Give them a soapbox to talk. Focus on their needs and listen intently.
2.) Gather additional information
Now that you’ve established a common ground and created some mutual interest, it’s time to gather up some information beyond what you’ve gleaned from your previous phone conversation.
During this process, you are trying to understand their key business issues, organizational structure, demonstrate areas that you can quickly add value (or save money), complexity of the assignment, and their true objectives. During this exchange, focus on the benefits of your service and how it will help them.
3.) Propose action and get them involved
The next hurdle in this process is to recommend solutions to the client’s problems and concerns. Guide the prospect by focusing on the benefits that are most important to them. If you provide these benefits in a unique or proprietary way, emphasize this.
After you propose your fees, be prepared to overcome some common objections.
4.) Gain agreement and secure a financial commitment
Once you secure their agreement to your proposal or services, stop selling and transition into execution mode. If you continue to focus on the selling, you may uncover an issue that you can not resolve and potentially lose the sale.
Some degree of financial commitment is important at the end of every sales transaction. If you haven’t secured a bonafide agreement at the end of your meeting, secure a commitment to some course of action.
Selling is Like Dating - To learn more about this author, visit Hugh Duffy's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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