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ELEMENTS OF A SALES RELATIONSHIP
Five factors characterize a sales encounter: connection, curiosity, deference, preference, and desire. Here are our definitions and importance of each concept in sales:
• Connection means a good relationship of any duration. It builds in stages with those stages occurring in a single meeting or over time. Your body language should reinforce the growing sense of trust between you and the prospect.
• Curiosity means genuine interest, both in the person you are meeting with and in that person’s ideas. Curiosity maintains the vitality of the connection—and it needs to be mutual. The active listening you used to help establish a connection plays a key role, signaling that you want to know what the prospect or client is telling you. In turn, questions from the person about your company and your product or service should indicate that the curiosity is reciprocated.
• Deference means regard and respect. It has the connotation of putting someone above you, perhaps just momentarily. The placement of deference generally shifts back and forth in a sales relationship with the body language similarly going from the projection of control and authority to recognizing the control and authority of the other person. The pendulum swing typically does something like this: (1) You display and express deference related to your appreciation at having a meeting with the person. (2) The prospect or client shows you deference as you describe the quality of your product and power of your solution to her problem. (3) You return to a more deferential posture in acknowledging the decision authority of the person.
• Preference means fondness and predilection. It could be an overt or a subliminal influence, so subtle that the person has no idea it exists as a key factor in decision-making. For some, it could be the preference to be in the company of an attractive or pleasant individual, as opposed to someone who is neither. A preference could also mean the person is predisposed to favor domestic products over imports, or the other way around. In the course of a sales encounter, prospects might reveal that a preference exists by changes in body language; they exude feelings that they might not even be aware of.
• Desire is a longing, a need. It makes the close possible when the desire is for a solution, resolution, fulfillment, engagement, or other factor that improves the person’s business circumstances. The sense that a need is being fulfilled should grow stronger throughout the encounter until the inevitable occurs: the sale is made.
The “body language of rapport-building” is how we will describe the set of actions that help build connection. We will also look at some of the specific things you might do to express and arouse curiosity, show deference and accept that it is being shown to you, and recognize the indicators of desire. We will also guide you in what body language can help you determine the preferences of people in your meeting.
Connection
Sales professionals need to establish trust, collect accurate information, and leave prospects and customers with a lingering good feeling about them. The foundation for success in all three areas is forging a positive connection. For some people, the ability to do this comes naturally; for others, it’s a learned skill. They have to study it like an engineer has to study calculus. In an interview focused on rapport-building, Elizabeth Bancroft, executive director of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, expressed this sentiment: “There are traits—some ethnic, perhaps, and some the result of upbringing—that predispose certain people to be gifted at connecting with others and eliciting information. For the same reasons, other people have no gift for these things and it would be harder for them to cultivate rapport-building skills.”1
Here is a list of rapport-building techniques that will help you either freshen your skills or start from scratch in developing them. The how-to for each of the 10 techniques is explored in some detail following the list:
2. Use touch carefully.
3. Share something with the person about yourself.
4. Mirror the other person.
5. Treat everyone with respect.
6. Reinforce trust through open body language.
7. Suspend your ego.
8. Flatter and praise.
9. Take your time in listening.
10. Get your prospect talking and moving.
Smile With Your Eyes
It’s the look you give to someone you are genuinely happy to see. In this case, a picture is worth a thousand words.
We are not talking about revitalizing the campaign in which people carry or wear a sign offering “free hugs.” We are talking about using the science of haptic communication to your advantage.
Haptics is the study of communication by touch, with haptic communication referring specifically to nonverbal communication that refers to the ways in which people and animals interact meaningfully via the sense of touch. (The science has expanded to include haptic technologies, but we are using the term in a more classic sense.) Researchers in this field have found hard evidence that touch improves interaction in a variety of situations. For example, students evaluated a library and its staff more favorably if the librarian briefly touched the patron while returning his or her library card, female restaurant servers received larger tips when they touched patrons, and people were more likely to sign a petition when the petitioner touched them during their interaction.
We offer this insight with a caveat. In a sales situation, it is possible to progress from a handshake to other, minimal touch, depending on the circumstances and the level of rapport that’s developing. Touch can serve as a physical reminder of the connection that’s forming. But “touch” can be interpreted broadly, as the following image suggests. In it, the consultant and his client are simply touching the same device. In our definition of the term, this could also be considered haptic communication. Similar proximity might involve jointly working through a problem on a whiteboard or just handing the person a cup of coffee as opposed to letting him pour it himself.
Note that your touch communication with a business contact is shaped by your knowledge of the person’s culture, including the corporate culture, and facts about the person’s demeanor that you picked up during baselining.
Share Something About Yourself With the Person
There is a huge difference between “getting personal” and revealing selected facts about yourself. A prospect should not have to hear about your nasty divorce, but may feel a connection with you by knowing where you went to college or your recreational pursuits. Your homework on the individual you’re meeting with should give you at least a handful of facts about education, work history, non-work interests, and so on, that give you ways to introduce related facts about yourself. A quick web search yields a lot.
The payoff for your efforts is an effective incentive to promote conversation aimed at connecting. Think about how this works on a date (or think back to how this worked on a date if you’ve been out of that scene for a while). Your date says, “Sorry about the interruption. That call was from my mom.” You say, “Where does your mom live?” She says, “Philadelphia.” You say, “I went to school at UPenn!” Suddenly, you are visualizing the same streets and sharing memories that you can both relate to, even though they don’t reflect shared experiences.
Mirror the Other Person
People like people who seem similar to them in presentation and conversation. Be cautious, though, because you do not want to mimic the other person; that will instantly destroy rapport.
Mirroring is generally subtle, whether you do it with your voice or your body, and it’s often automatic. In fact, it’s so natural that you might surprise yourself at how easily and often you do it. Four common ways that we mirror other people are:
• Choice of word or phrase. Industries, companies, departments, and teams may all have a working vocabulary specific to their needs, mission, and objectives. Using selected words or phrases that suggest you have paid attention and absorbed keywords supports connection. Using a caliber of vocabulary that matches that of your contact is another form of mirroring; if he tends to be monosyllabic, don’t go reaching for the mile-long academic words. On a more automatic level, if a person uses a phrase that “sounds right” to you, you might start using it without thinking.
• Pacing. It might be the cadence associated with regional speech or a pace reflecting personal style. When you find yourself talking at the same rate as the other person, it is not acting or “faking it.” It’s mirroring that comes naturally to people who want to connect with another person.
• Energy level. You want to be in roughly the same arena as the person you are trying to connect with. Overwhelming an even-keeled or low-energy person with your volume and pace or with movements that are highly energetic will push that person away. Just wait for the barriers to show up! In contrast, if your meeting is with a person who tends to scurry around and talk fast and you are extremely reserved, you have a mismatch that can cause distance rather than support connection.
• Movement. Mirroring could be a slight lean in the same direction as the other person or using an arm position that’s similar. Yawning in response to another person’s yawn is involuntary mirroring. Deliberate mirroring to enhance a developing rapport means getting the gist of the other person’s movements rather than duplicating them. In this image, the two people meeting are barriering in a similar manner, squaring their shoulders in a similar manner, and maintaining eye contact. A salient point is that each person has gender-specific ways of adopting the same posture. The following image demonstrates a successful example of mirroring.
Suppose you’re a 50-ish sales professional wearing a jacket and slacks making a presentation to a 28-year-old internet security specialist with sleeve tattoos and blue-streaked hair. If you expect to be treated with respect by others, then that’s how you have to treat them. Body language and tone of voice that suggest anything but respect will be detected, if only subliminally. You may have to remind yourself that ink on the arm does not alter a person’s intelligence or personality as you look for ways to connect in a genuine way.
Over the course of years of interviews, we have heard what some people would consider horror stories about this challenge. In these scenarios, the person who needed to connect with another person felt as though his or her values were being assaulted in showing respect. Lena Sisco, a decorated interrogator and founder of the Congruency Group, noted in Maryann’s book Nothing but the Truth that there was a particular emotional challenge of establishing rapport with members of the Taliban who had done horrific things to people. Yet her job as a military interrogator depended on the ability to connect with them with respect; she had to remind herself, “At the end of the day, they are still human beings. To get them to talk to me, they have to feel honest respect from me.”2
Among the simpler, more common ways to show respect for another person are to silence your mobile phone before a meeting and not interrupt the person while she’s talking.
Reinforce Trust Through Open Body Language
Open body language is invitational: no barriers between you and the other person, including crossed arms and laptop computers; eye contact that shows you are genuinely attentive; and a relaxed demeanor that puts another person at ease and makes it easy to sit in the same room with you.
The opposite is body language that shields key vulnerable areas, namely, the nape of the neck, torso, and area just below the waist. In this context, we don’t want to think of them as areas of vulnerability, however. When you expose them with confidence you inspire trust, and in the context of sales, they are better termed “power zones.”
For simplicity, we will call these three areas the neck, navel, and groin. With that in mind, here are examples of the opposite of what you aim for.
As you look at these examples of ways to block the power zones, consider how commonly you might use such barriers with no intention of shutting out another person. Barriers like those depicted convey a definite sense that you either feel ill-at-ease or distanced from the other person in the room—not perceptions that support rapport-building.
Suspend Your Ego
In general, people like to exhibit their expertise and experience. It makes them feel smart and worthwhile. Show interest when the person you’re meeting with tries to tell you how to do something or explains a concept to you. Let her educate you.
The ability to suspend your ego makes you more likeable and the other person more open to your requests and input. In other words, ego suspension helps create a path of less resistance. Remember that ego suspension means that the exchange is principally about the other person. Be attentive without faking it. False interest is easy to read.
Now for the hard part. By definition, ego is inextricably linked with who you are and what you’re worth. If you’re making a solution sale or an expertise sale, for example, then you have to be perceived as the best person to address the customer’s problem and/or to advise him on a crucial business matter. But do not underestimate the power of humility in gaining someone’s trust. There is nothing wrong with appreciating your self-worth and letting your professional value and knowledge shine through in conversation, but there is a lot wrong with putting them center stage and throwing a spotlight on them.
If you can master the ability to make your prospect or customer feel respected for his competence and knowledge, you have gone a long way toward convincing her that you are a worthy and able partner.
Flatter and Praise
Genuine compliments energize people. They help lift a person up and make him feel as though you appreciate what he has to offer in the meeting. It’s not a matter of buttering up the person, as much as it is voicing the fact that you notice something worth noticing.
Your positive remarks do not need to be an observation about the person you’re meeting with. They can be about the organization, facility, culture, the trophies in the lobby, or fact that there is a parking space outside for the deceased founder of the company. Jim actually saw this and was moved at the caring culture of the organization. Employees had decided to permanently set aside a parking space for the man who made their careers possible.
If you not only notice something like that, but also show that you care about it, then you connect in a persuasive way.
Take Your Time in Listening
In the upcoming section on curiosity, we explore the skill of active listening in depth. This is a critical skill that will serve you well both professionally and personally. The summary point to remember is that the best listening is done with your whole body. When someone thinks that you have drifted away from the conversation, perhaps because you’ve turned away, are shuffling in your seat, or glancing at your phone, you have reduced rapport.
As part of your vigorous listening, pay attention to any unique vocabulary the person uses. Adopting keywords shows you are paying attention. For example, if you client talks about not “having eyes on the problem,” that’s a phrase that has meaning for him. Make a mental note of it and, when appropriate, use it when you talk about the solution you’re offering him. Don’t wait for the meeting to pick up keywords and phrases, either. Make sure your homework on the industry and the company includes nomenclature used in the space. You should walk in with a handle on buzzwords that relate to operations, mission, and other aspects of the business.
Get Your Prospect Talking and Moving
When you ask yes-or-no question, some people actually give a yes or no in response—and nothing more. Ask questions that require a narrative response. These are questions that begin with an interrogative—that is, who, what, when, where, how, and why.
As a complement to talking, when you move the conversation from one physical location to another, you have set the stage for taking your rapport-building to the next level. In discussing a major donation to an art museum, for example, you could take your prospect into the framing shop to get a behind-the-scenes look at a relatively unique expertise that is vital to your operation. If you are visiting your customer’s facility, always accept the invitation to tour it, even if you’re toured it before. Be attentive; look for changes that may have been made and comment on them as part of showing your interest. Once a person has experienced a connection with you in different environments, the bond between you strengthens.
Even if you are adept at these positive rapport-building techniques, some people resist a connection to another person. It doesn’t matter that this may be something they actually want; they still push back. Here are some reasons why you and your prospect may have some barriers to forging a connection:
• The person does not perceive that you share a value system. Maybe because of something you said, or wore, or something that was said about you, the individual feels distanced from you. For example, let’s say it’s July 3rd and you are in a “heartland” region of the United States where patriotism is openly exhibited. You are meeting with a CEO that your homework indicates is active in local politics. Although you have a suit on that’s accompanied by your warmest smile, you are not wearing a label pin with the Stars and Stripes on it—suggesting that perhaps you are not keenly aware that the following day is July 4th, America’s Independence Day. Whether the CEO’s response to you comes from observation and judgment, or from a subliminal reaction to the lack of a flag symbol, you just lost ground in your efforts to build rapport.
• Your customer or prospect feels as though you do not have a positive relationship with her team or trusted advisors. If you have done anything to alienate a gatekeeper or influencer in her life, you will likely be held at a distance.
• Negative emotions dominate. How would you act with the principal of the company you are meeting with if you were kept waiting for 45 minutes in a windowless conference room without even being offered water? If your frustration surfaces in the first moments of a meeting with that person, you can probably forget about building a rapport with him.
• You come across as disingenuous. You may just be distracted because of a fender bender on your way to the meeting, or perhaps you do not feel well so your focus is off and your energy level is low. Regardless of the reason, if you prospect does not perceive you as fully present and engaged, you could be perceived as insincere. This is a time when your knowledge of body language can help you move past a major problem quickly.
Before trying to establish rapport with someone, consider if there might be such circumstantial, ideological, or other barriers that will complicate your task.
Another barrier to developing strong positive rapport is a sense of threat. Later in the book, we explore a sales approach we call fear selling that involves a measure of intimidation, the suggestion being that the customer stands to lose a lot—money, brand recognition, proprietary data, or something else—unless he hires you or buys your product. In most situations, instilling fear on any level works against you because fear is such a powerful emotion. When it surfaces, a person’s body experiences automatic changes in blood flow and muscle tension; these make it hard for the person to calm down and have a rational conversation. When there is the presence of a threat—a threat you can theoretically alleviate—a connection might be made, but without a lot of positive feelings. A bond shaped by intimidation may be effective in the short run, but it is not an effective long-term strategy.
Curiosity is a science, not “just” an intellectual response to something we find interesting. The Center for Curiosity in New York promotes research initiatives on the subject and currently has projects underway at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar in India. The importance of this to you is that a segment of the research the Center is spearheading concerns the importance of curiosity in business, most notably consumer behavior and the impact of curiosity on workplace performance. Curiosity is a seriously important element in our business relationships.
Curiosity results from our natural inclination as people to be stimulus-seeking. As a sales professional, if you can enhance it by asking a question or providing information that lights a fire under a person’s interest, you have moved your rapport-building efforts to a new level.
Curiosity strengthens the connection that is forming between you and your prospect. Two big ways to do this are through the quality of information you offer, and the associated presentation of it, and through your active listening.
Be Provocative
A June 2011 article for Forbes offered “5 Tips for Presenting Boring Technical Information—so It Isn’t Boring.”3 The tips offered by Forbes contributor Nick Morgan merit focus because they help steer anyone toward arousing curiosity in people through the content and style in which information is presented. In going through those five recommendations—substantially paraphrased here to focus on sales—we also create a set-up to highlight the body language associated with being provocative.
• Presenting information is about persuasion, not only information. Yes, you will be telling the prospect or client about key features of your offering. At the same time, you are persuading the person those features are actually key—that is, the reason they are worth talking about is that they have value.
• Tying your information to solving a well-defined problem. Describe the problem and the pain it causes for the person. Follow that with an honest statement of how you can help solve it.
• Using stories and case studies to give life to your ability to solve problems. This is not to say that numbers should be ignored—“You can save $100,000 a year by doing this”—but rather that a story about a company saving $100,000 a year anchors the value of what you have to offer.
• Weaving metaphors and analogies into your presentation. If your database software has an ability to prevent hacking that endangers proprietary information, then you could say, “It’s like a vaccine.”
• Inviting your audience to give the answers to the questions that keep the presentation moving. Ask the people in the meeting, “How would you solve this if you had unlimited resources?” or “What does a successful public relations campaign look like to your CEO?”
With all of these tips, your ability to boost curiosity relates to how much you show interest in the audience’s reactions and affirmation of their responses. It’s great that they “get” what you have to say, but their engagement goes to a new level if they feel their responses have provoked new thoughts in you. In short, being provocative is ideally a reciprocal experience in which the audience gets the sense they are being provocative with you, too.
Use Active Listening
Active listening is one of the most critical tools you can have in trying to reinforce the rapport you’re trying to build with someone. It’s a magical way of getting people to share information.
Active listening has physical, intellectual, and emotional components.
Intellectual
You listen for keywords, which might be indicated by emphasis or how frequently they are used. Sometimes the keywords give you an obvious message. Someone who makes frequent references to taking a break or getting away for a while might actually be quite focused on finding vacation time.
You also want to listen for words that aren’t there, but you would expect them to be there. For example, if the point of your meeting is to discuss computer-related security needs and the customer never even says the word security, the omission tells you he is avoiding the topic on some level. Similarly, someone who got a bad performance review and talks about everything except the performance review is probably broadcasting a message that she’s upset about the performance review.
Let’s look at that latter scenario—omission of keywords. Here three examples of the significance of this that Jim that noted while doing executive coaching. These were with three senior executives named Bill, Josh, and Darrow. Bill is in finance, Josh is in technology, and Darrow owns a couple of electrical contracting companies.
1. For a couple of sessions, Bill harped on the shortcomings of one of his staff members. The person seemed to be going in circles. He wasn’t delivering. Jim helped Bill uncover the real issue, which is that Bill felt that he wasn’t asserting leadership. Until that point, Bill had skirted the subject of his leadership role and responsibilities with the failing staff member.
2. In a related example, Josh talked endlessly about systems. Putting time-management systems in place. Making inventory systems run smoothly. Again, the issue wasn’t technical: It wasn’t about having systems that helped the company stay on track. Josh’s real concern was the lack of personal accountability in the company. He avoided addressing that directly by focusing on systems.
3. With Darrow, he expressed concerns about strategic planning. Over and over, he talked about the imperative to implement a new planning process. The core issue here, which he kept side-stepping, was access to capital. He was uncomfortable talking about what he needed to do to get an infusion of cash, so he shifted his conversations to a related activity.
Physical
What you do and what you don’t do with your body, including your voice, can signal the other person that you are listening carefully. Your posture, gestures, focus, energy, tone of voice, pace of speech, and word choices can either reassure someone that you’re listening and not judging, or shut the other person down. These are all types of regulators.
Invitational body language involves looking at the person you’re talking with. If you ask someone a question and then put your eyes on your computer, that’s not the body language of active listening.
Your vocal patterns should be whatever is normal for you when you’re not under stress. In other words, if a customer is telling you something that is emotionally charged, if you want to use active listening to encourage her to tell you the whole story, then try to keep your tone of voice and pace of speech as even as possible. It’s in these tough conversational moments that active listening is an invaluable tool to communicate stability and engender trust.
Emotional
Listening to a client share feelings with you is likely to arouse some kind of emotional response. And if it doesn’t, or you find yourself annoyed, we recommend hiding those facts.
Even though you want your tone and pace to be normal while you’re listening, at some point, it can help to show how you feel, too. In a business setting, there’s a kind of quid pro quo with this—that is, the exchange of “something for something” or “this for that.” We’ll get into the mechanics of quid pro quo as a questioning tactic later, but the key thing to remember here is that you aren’t out to top the other person in terms of emotion, but just to let a little leak so the person feels like you’re really connecting.
You’re regulating the conversation through your active listening techniques.
Deference
The dance associated with deference involves alternating who is leading. The reciprocal nature of the exchange lends a balance and flow to a sales encounter. It is part of human nature to want to have a give-and-take relationship with others, so when deference is one-sided, the conversation seems awkward. And for the party who never feels deference, she might also experience resentment at not being shown respect; it’s as though her ideas and opinions have no value to you.
Because of the reciprocity inherent in the shift of esteem from one person to another, deference helps create the ideal environment for persuasion, “the art of getting people to do things that are in their own best interest that also benefit you.”4 By showing regard for the other person’s input, you make it clear that you are not making assumptions about what she needs, wants, or expects. You make it easier to persuade her to say yes to your product or service. When the time is right and you’ve collected the information you need, then you can move into the spotlight.
When it’s your turn to take the lead, you need the body language of a confident person. You want to maintain comfortable eye contact, stand or sit up straight, and use illustrators that invite the person to “take” your information, as the following photo suggests. Mirroring is also important here because you want to reinforce the connection you are forging, even though it’s your turn to shine.
Body language that suggests you do not feel as though you are in control—that you don’t deserve deference—includes these tells:
• A higher-than-normal blink rate. A normal blink rate would be about six to eight times a minute, with the rate increasing if the eyes are a bit dry. What would cause that? Stress.
• The use of adaptors. As soon as you rub your neck, chew on your lips, play with your earring, or show any other actions that suggest anxiety, you weaken your position in the room.
• Holding your elbows close to your ribs. This suggests you need protection—that you are not comfortable at the moment.
• Knitting your brows. This is a look that might be simply that you’re paying attention—it’s the way you show interest—but most people would look at that facial movement and wonder, “What’s wrong?”
• Pursing your lips. Depending on how you do it, you will either look upset or like you’re holding something back.
Preference
Determining a customer’s preference in the context of this discussion has nothing to do with advanced analytics software. That kind of technology is useful for companies emailing offers after collecting data based on online activity, but we’re talking about reading a customer’s body language to find out more about what he wants. More specifically, you want to read him to ascertain what product or service you have that appeals to him most.
Let’s start with the premise that preferences aren’t necessarily rational. The skin of many oranges, especially those from warm countries, is green. Consumers want oranges to be the color orange, though, so producers expose them to ethylene gas, or scrub them and dip them in dye. We have an irrational preference for orange oranges.
Building on the irrationality theme, we know that research conducted by Yale University psychologists looked at why many people “resist acquiring scientific information that clashes with common-sense intuitions about the physical and psychological domains.”5 In other words, their preference is to disregard documented facts and believe what feels right to them. If you are trying to focus a pros-pect’s or client’s attention on a solution that absolutely makes sense based on all available data, but it doesn’t make sense to him, then his preference is to refuse to accept what you’re saying. It is important that you see the signs of that and, if possible, look for a different way to communicate your information.
A customer’s preference might not even be clear to her. She may hope that you present her with enough options and choices that you will help her discover what she really likes and wants. This is potentially a giant black hole for your selling energy: You work so hard to present multiple choices that the message about your ability to provide something useful gets lost. The dilemma you potentially create is captured in the context of a consumer-goods story from Dr. Art Markman, PhD, a professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas at Austin. Markman did what so many of us have done and hit the same confusion: He went to buy a new coffee maker and found a wall of them. Not only did he face more options than he wanted, he also had to fight through a crowd to get to them. He wondered what caused the crowds and concluded his experience captured an interesting tradeoff: “[P]eople want to have lots of options. That gives them the feeling that their choice is not at all constrained...[but] as the number of options goes up, the choice gets more difficult to make, and that can make it hard to know whether you have made a good decision.6
In assessing whether you have hit the mark in determining your prospect’s preference on price, contract duration, quality, technical support, or any other aspect of your deliverable, look for the following positive responses, as well as the negative ones.
Positive (Your sense of the person’s preference is affirmed.)
• A natural smile comes easily on hearing your information.
• You see some nodding.
• The eyes are wide open, not trying to avoid you or the information you are visually presenting.
• You see some excitement in the person’s illustrators. Displays of excitement are related to baseline, so keep in mind that someone who has generally conservative moves might show excitement by simply giving a little “thumbs up.”
• You get questions that invite you to go deeper into the information provided.
Negative (The person is sending you a message that you have missed the mark.)
• You see a “Botox smile.” It’s polite and nothing more.
• You either see no nodding or a lowering of the head to indicate “This is painful.”
• The eyes are darting away, glancing at something else in the room, or focused downward so that eye contact is impossible.
• You see barriers. This could mean the person’s body is now angled away from you, legs are suddenly crossed, or perhaps the prospect has placed her phone on the conference table in front of her.
• You get questions that challenge what you said in a confrontational way, or statements that contradict you.
Reading the prospect’s body language and verbal cues will probably give you the confirmation you needed that you are either on-target or off-target. Use that perception to recast what you’re saying. You might just start by making an honest admission: “I can see you are looking for something else. I would appreciate knowing what you’re thinking and what you’re looking for.”
Desire
At the start of the meeting, your prospect walked in desiring something from you. She wanted a product, answers, services, insights, direction—maybe all of those things. You have the opportunity to meet the need(s), disappoint, or ratchet up the desire to work with you and your company.
We all want to make brilliant decisions. We desire to reduce the risk of failure and increase the chance for Moon-landing success. The higher the stakes, the greater our sense of desire. A customer who feels you are able to see outside of market dynamics so that you help her get ahead of them—that’s ratcheting up desire.
The route to ratcheting up the desire relates a great deal to you (1) listening during the meeting; (2) responding directly to questions, concerns, and hopes; and (3) observing changes in the prospect’s body language as different emotions are aroused by the conversation.
• What did she say that provided an opportunity for you to challenge her assumptions about what she wants? She wants the a + b solution. You affirm that’s a great combination, but what if she could have a + b2 at the same terms?
• You tell a story that illustrates how a + b2 has catapulted another client company forward in terms of efficiency. Provide specifics to whatever extent you can. If the company is not a competitor, then referencing their experience (with their permission) would make your point.
• You listen to her concerns about a + b2 being relatively new and untested. Take advantage of the herd mentality to note that other respected companies have chosen a + b2. The alternative to this is arguing that she creates a competitive advantage for her company by being the first in her industry to adopt a + b2.
The mechanics of stimulating desire in sales are curiosity about what you offer, when you can deliver it, what it costs, why it’s so great, and why you are the person your prospect feels deserves a “yes.”
Summary Points
• Five factors characterize a sales encounter: connection, curiosity, deference, preference, and desire.
• Some people are naturals at connecting with others; some benefit from studying it like they would study calculus. It’s critical to learn—or just practice—how to smile genuinely, use touch appropriately, share a little information about yourself, mirror body language, treat the other person with respect, reinforce trust with your behavior, suspend your ego, give compliments, listen well, and get your prospect talking and moving.
• Curiosity results from our natural inclination as people to be stimulus-seeking. You want to ask questions and provide information that light a fire under your pros-pect’s interest in you and what you have to offer.
• Active listening is your essential skill in keeping conversation going. It has three components: intellectual, physical, and emotional.
• The dance associated with deference involves alternating who is leading. The reciprocal nature of the exchange lends a balance and flow to a sales encounter.
• Customer preferences are not necessarily rational, but they are compelling reasons to make a decision. Your conversation with the prospect can get them to surface.
• Not only do you want to understand your customer’s desire, you want to escalate it—to take it to new heights!