A good seller must give a prospect a breathing room, or else you lose the deal. PHOTO | FILE
Let’s follow this phone conversation one early morning.
Caller: Good morning, Mr Samson!
Sam: Good morning to you.
Caller: I hope you are well today...My name is ...... and I work for ...... We are a large team of experts in motor car sales and engineering called ......... I was wondering if you would like to take advantage of my seasoned expertise to acquire a gently used motoring machine?
I have been with ... as a successful motor acquisition expert for 12 years now. I specialise in helping you hand-pick the best machine for your lifestyle and driving pleasure.
I also help you pick a machine that will ensure you spend the least time and money on fuel and maintenance.
Sam: Err ahem!
Caller: Hello? Are you still there?
Sam: Yes, I would... (Caller cuts him off mid-sentence).
Caller: If I could have only 10 minutes of your time to further discuss this next week sometime maybe Monday or Tuesday?
Sam: ...? ... and ... Alright? ... Thank you. »kttkkk« (Hangs up, shaking his head).
My husband is a courteous person and I assure you that even the »kttkkk« was done in a painfully polite manner. Still, you really do not want to be on the receiving end of what Sam finally had to say to the caller.
There are a myriad of wrong assumptions in nearly each word the caller let out of his mouth but I am going to work with only one of them today. I, I and more I.
This call is a good example of a problem looking for a solution. Yes, I don’t just hear you, I am with you on this — you would expect a sales pitch to answer to one or more of your problems and swiftly provide a solution. That is unfortunately not the experience of today’s prospective customer.
When you want to interest anyone, know that he or she is wired to think about benefits, gains, profit, bonus, discount, special offer.... Every customer alive is yours for the taking.
If, however, you approach with the assumption that your prospect has a problem and come complete with a solution, you are at best a seller with an inverted concept of engaging with your market.
This concept makes only YOU, your best target client. Unless you can profitably buy all your own products and services, I suggest you work with the prospect’s interest in mind.
Back to that excessively repeated word. I won’t tell you not to but know that every time the word “I” leaves your lips, your prospect moves three to five steps away from your product. You want to understand that every person you encounter is inherently vested in his or her own best interests.
‘I’ approach
I realise how selfish this sounds and it is where your perfect understanding of humanity must come in. Forget about how selfish others can be.
Choose to see selfishness as a good trait. I do. In fact, I call it ‘selfulness’. Oh, forget about Oxford or Miriam Webster, the word exists and I am graciously sharing it with you and others. For life.
‘Selfulness’: the innately woven desire to satisfy every single need and want in one’s life as a priority. Others’ needs and wants come later. (Source: Seraphine’s Ultimate Potential Dictionary).
Alright, relax, take several deep breaths and exhale. Slowly. There are no hard and fast rules here. You have no obligation to understand or even appreciate this.
If, however, you require to liaise with anyone in the world, this is a concept you want to incorporate in your winning arsenal. Know that everyone is first interested in themselves, not in you.
So when you approach with “I” all over their eardrums, all they hear is: “you don’t know them, you don’t like them, you don’t care about them, you’re not in their corner,” and by the law of attraction, that’s the exact response you are sure to get.
They don’t want to know you, they don’t like you, they don’t care about you, they are not on your side and are certainly not listening to you.
No one really cares about your name, where you work or if you work, the size of your team, how many years you’ve been at it and how you can position a second-hand car. Unfair and brutal? Get used to it; people care about themselves first. Period.
If you’re going to have even half of anybody’s attention, you must purpose to be in the same space with them — thinking about and addressing them and the matters that concern them.
This is the only way that you will get them to truly feel that you share their perspective and understand them completely... that you are in alignment with them, that you are vibrating in their wavelength.
One more thing; please toss out that dreadful telephone sales script into the bin. It kills your chances before your prospects can learn to pronounce your name.
Seraphine is an expert in attitude and human potential. Email: [email protected]
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