by Christine Sutherland
After decades of studying elite sales professionals, and teaching and measuring sales skills to a broad cross-section of sales people, I’d like to pass on to you the 7 ways in which the elite performers assure their success. Use this article to identify and master the skills that you’ll require as part of your repertoire if you’re to truly gain total control of your earning capacity.
INCREDIBLE RAPPORT
Sales people used to be taught matching and mirroring, but in fact that’s just a tiny shred of true rapport. The best sales people build amazing rapport very rapidly, even with people who don’t particularly like them initially.
Let’s hope the online dating gurus don’t ever find out that this highest level of rapport even exists!
Just remember that manipulation is dumb, and use these skills to enhance relationships of all types, and you’ll be on the road to higher sales simply because people start connecting with you so much better.
What’s the secret? Well partly of course it takes practice, but it’s important that this is correct practice. Some of the things you can do to increase your rapport skills are to take a leaf out of, believe it or not, the synchonised swimming teams!
Notice how they not only match their breathing, but they use eye contact to match their internal states? Sounds a bit “woo-woo”, I know, but it does work!
“SPOOKY” MIND READING
An amazing level of rapport is one thing, but mind reading, where you actually know what your client is thinking, is a skill that borders on “spooky” but is certainly achievable.
These days you can use cutting edge accelerated learning techniques to move you toward a state of deep competence as quickly as possible, so that you learn to appreciate what your clients are thinking even before they realise it themselves.
How would you like to know the difference between “yes/no”, “like/dislike”, and “ready/not ready”? Useful?
You can certainly gain this skill, and again it takes practice! If you’re willing to spend time with buddies or business friends who’ll silently think of things that for example they “like”, and then of things that they “don’t like”, you’ll very quickly notice the set of cues that are the giveaway for each person. The more you practice, the more you can pick this up quickly even with people you’ve never met before.
THE ONLY CLIENT TRAITS THAT MATTER TO THE SALES PROFESSIONAL
Although therapists work with several personality traits, most of them don’t know THESE! These are the traits that predict how a client will go through the decision making process - the traits that give away the very factors the client needs in order to say yes. Can you see why I say they’re essential for you to know? (And they should be essential for therapists too!)
It might surprise you, but once you’ve studied that collection of traits, you’ll find you’ve got a natural affinity with them. In fact if you bring to mind even casual acquaintances, you’ll find that you can now identify those traits IMMEDIATELY.
Here’s an example of one that is not so unusual, and it’s called “Match/Mismatch”.
I’m sure you know at least one person who habitually disagrees with anyone and anything. It’s not that they’re being negative, because if you say something is lousy they’ll assert that it’s perfectly OK! This is a mismatcher, or “polarity responder” and it’s just the way they are. They are always sorting information for “difference”.
Just as irritating as a mismatcher is a “similarity responder” who will find a way to agree with everything you say (it doesn’t mean they’ll follow through on that by the way). They perceive everything as familiar and “same”, and find it very difficult to disagree, or cope with things they don’t understand. They will fill in the blanks in their imagination, so that it looks just like something they already know.
How This Trait Works in Real Life
Let’s say Fred the sales professional is visiting Macy the general manager and Macy seems “disagreeable”. First she explains a problem on the manufacturing line, but when Fred repeats her statement later, she denies there is a problem! Macey is such an extreme mismatcher that she even mismatches her own statements. (Christine’s note: as hard as it might be to believe, such extreme mismatchers do exist. They’re rare, but they do exist!)
A seemingly difficult situation becomes extremely easy to influence when you realise that the mismatcher is fatally predictable. Fred can simply say “Macey, you might not agree with me that there could be an easier way, but I wonder if you wouldn’t find it less costly to …..”
And he can continue: “Macey, this option isn’t for everyone and it might not suit you in this case ….”. In fact Macey is probably the easiest client anyone could possibly sell to providing you understand her and respond to her the way that she requires. When you understand all the personality traits, you won’t make those relating mistakes again because you’ll be working in line with your client’s “style”.
MILLION DOLLAR QUESTIONS EVERY SALES PERSON SHOULD KNOW
Clients love these 3 little questions and elite sales performers are experts at asking them, and working with the answers.
These 3 questions can rightly be called “million dollar questions” because they absolutely highlight the client’s core values in relation to the product or service being offered, and even tell you the precise words the client needs to hear in order to make a decision to buy.
There are 2 reasons why these questions can be regarded as “gold”. They increase your chances of selling by at least double, and they simultaneously build an incredibly deep level of understanding between you and your client, meaning that it’s also more likely that you’ll receive terrific referrals from this client far into the future.
HOW TO HAVE ABSOLUTE CONTROL OVER YOUR SALES INCOME
Are you confident at the moment of hitting any sales goal you choose?
Top performers can pull in their desired income year after year because they know and use their own mathematical equation that leads inevitably to a certain sales result.
So far as I’m aware, Frank Bettger was the first professional sales person to formulate and use this mathematical equation to literally choose his income. Even though selling activities have changed, and the skills I’ve discussed certainly increase effectiveness over older methods, the mathematical equation still holds.
What sales activities do you get involved in? What result can you attribute to each (even if it’s just a guess at this stage)? If you wanted to double your income, what would you have to do? What activities would you dump and what would you keep?
But to actually come through on this equation, you have to plan, document, track and analyse each activity. Otherwise you’re still flying blind, and you’re not being accountable - not even to yourself. If you are prepared to do these things then I’m excited for you, because you’re nearly there!
ABRACADABRA! FEAR OR DOUBT GONE!
Have you ever known what you had to do, and certainly been capable of doing it very well, and yet you procrastinated or self-sabotaged so it still didn’t get done? This is what fear or niggling doubt can do, so obviously it needs to go!
What if you know you should feel confident about making those calls or speaking in front of that group, but you still feel sick in the stomach every time you think about it?
For several years we’ve had available an incredible technique to eliminate these types of fears and doubts literally overnight (including stuttering, by the way) but very few people have known about it.
One of the most powerful of all these techniques is “NeuroStim”. It’s capable of eliminating depression, chronic pain, fear and anxiety in just days, and sometimes even overnight.
YOUR PAYOFF FOR NETWORKING STRATEGICALLY!
In the old days we always recommended that our clients and students join a business networking organisation in order to build relationships that would benefit them personally and professionally. We toiled conscientiously and for years to teach a philosophy and methodology that we knew worked.
Sadly, we don’t see any evidence at all that the organisations understand the principles of effective business networking.
Nowadays we advise our clients and students to avoid these organisations whenever possible. They are half-baked examples of what networking should be about and our people are far better off forming their own business networks among trusted business friends. If they do this the right way, they’ll enjoy unprecedented success, including superior peer-mentoring, joint venture agreements, referrals, advocacy, and sharing of expertise and resources. And they can do it all in business hours.
The advantages of turning your back on the networking organisations and building your own private network are gigantic. You’ll save time, money and effort, and you no longer have to tolerate boring or rude networking practices. You’ll no longer rob yourself, family or friends of time that should be spent with them. You’ll have REAL friends in business who enrich your life personally and professionally.
CAN YOU DO IT?
If you can only do these things, even though there’s so much more you can do in terms of skill building, you will certainly join the top echelon of professional sales people in the world today! And you’ll deserve it!
About the Author:
The free ebook ”
Speed Business Networking - The Manual” spells out the detailed principles and methods that result in effective networking. It’s available to people and networking organisations who want to network more humanely and more productively.