---

Guest post by: Peter Lawless Become an Author

Tweet

---

---

Without knowing a person's strategy, you could be emphasising all the wrong points.

What does moving towards or away from mean?

With all of us, two things matter. The first is engaging activities that please us. The second is avoiding activities that cause us pain. So when I say people are moving towards, I mean that they tend to spend most of their time trying to move towards pleasure.

On the other hand, some people predominantly spend their time avoiding pain. In NLP, this is often referred to as one of their strategies. I say predominantly, because most people will do both; however one of them figures more in their life than the other.

So what has this to do with selling, you may ask. Lots! Because if you are a moving towards type person, who is selling cars, you may wish to emphasize the looks, time from 0-60, the power of the engine etc. But what if the person is looking for reliability, a car that is safe, and has low fuel consumption? They would be a person who wants to avoid the pain of breakdowns, the danger in a collision and the high cost of fuel!

Without knowing a person's strategy, you could be emphasising all the wrong points. It is therefore vital to ask the person some questions, so as to elicit their strategy, so that you can emphasise points that match their way of thinking.

What questions to ask, to elicit someone's strategy?

In the above example, the obvious question to ask is; "what do you look for in a car?" Interestingly enough that question can work in a most situations, along with "what do you look for in a house" and "what do you look for in a relationship.

The answers will give you a very good idea as to whether they are a, "moving towards" or "moving away from", type person.

There are many questions that you can ask, indeed you should ask questions relevant to your business or offerings, so that not only do you get a clue as to a person's strategy, you also help in the sales process.

A question that I might use in my business would be as follows; "What do you look for in a sales coach?"

While there are many different answers, why don't you see which of these answers is most appropriate to you?

* I want someone to help me achieve my targets, so that I can buy that Lexus I have had my eye on.

* I don't believe I am reaching my true potential, and I want to ensure I don't miss my targets again.

* Can you see how the addition of "because my current car keeps breaking down" to the first response changes the emphasis from moving towards to moving away from?


What to do if their strategy is different to yours?

One of my clients had two partners who were selling the benefits of managed services for small to medium sized companies. One of the partners seemed to have the most success with clients who were looking for these types of services to avoid downtime and save costs.

While the other guy, found most success with customers who wanted someone to look after their IT systems, so that they could focus on what they were good at.

Given that most people can relate well to people who think the way that they do, it is not surprising that without this understanding, which they will often fail to convince someone who thinks differently.

The mere fact that you now understand one of the ways that people make decisions, and that it could be different to yours, in my opinion, you should find it a lot easier to sell your offerings.

Conclusion

First understand your own strategy. Then try out these simple questions with a few of your friends, to get an understanding of how they think. There is a good chance that you will be amazed at the insights these simple questions give you into people.

Translating these insights into questions that you can then use to move buyers closer to your products can still seem a challenge to some people, maybe then you could do with some help.

This series of articles will explore the different psychological buying patterns or your customers, and help you to identify how they make decisions.

Mars and Venus I - Introduction
Mars and Venus III - How does Venus know they got it right?
Mars and Venus IV – What makes sense to buyers?
Mars and Venus V - Buyers and Sellers Want to Close the Sale for Different Reasons

Related Articles

  Mars and Venus - Part III. How does Venus know they got it right?
  Mars and Venus Part I. Sales people are from Mars, Buyers are from Venus - Introduction
  Mars and Venus – Part IV. What makes sense to buyers?
  Salespeople and Their Fantasies
  Turning A Small Business Franchise Into Big Business
  How to Save Time & Money by hiring Removal Services?
  Organizing An Eco Friendly Move
  Incantations that make the difference
  The Benefits of Fusion Marketing Your Self Storage Facility with Other Local Businesses
  Tips on Moving A Business
  Nothing Standard About This New Category
  How to use Bollinger band in automated currency trading
  The Immigrant\'s Attitude
  Perceiving Victory
  Best ways to store office equipments when moving
  Simple Moving Averages-A Big Trading Advantage
  Do What You Love
  Types of Business Leaders
  "Your Memory - Have You Forgotten How To Use It?"
  Applying simple moving average to your Automated currency Trading

Related Forum Posts

Re: The Future of SEO (Video)
Hello From Movex Moving
Re: Differences between men and women entrepreneurs
Thank You Kevin, Welcome Ringo!
Fundraising for school activities such as sports, clubs

Share this article. Fund someone's dream.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

A Practical View of Mission and Vision Statements

Tasks You Can Outsource to a Virtual Assistant

The 5 Golden Rules of Awesome Blogging

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.