9

ROI SELLING

Return-on-investment (ROI) selling means convincing your prospects that you can improve their bottom line by increasing their profitability.

Using a strict definition of the term, return on investment (ROI) is calculated using this formula:

Using a broader definition of the term, both the words “return” and “investment” can have non-monetary meanings. Whatever definition you use, ROI selling is never just about money; it’s about human interaction.

Here is a classic example of an ROI sale. All over the country sales professionals are convincing municipalities of all sizes to spend as much as 26 times the amount they had been spending on a particular product. Instead of an item going for about $2.50, these cities, counties, and states have committed to a per-unit cost of $65. Keep in mind that the people trying to make the ROI sale have an uphill battle, because government agencies are renowned for being change-averse. At the same time, using anything other than an ROI approach would be a waste of time. Despite the challenges inherent in the sale, their success rate is high because their case is so financially strong. And then they add a few persuasive non-numbers facts to make their case airtight.

The $2.50 item is an incandescent traffic signal bulb. It has an estimated 8,000 life hours, so based on typical use, it would need to be replaced every two years.

The $65 item is an LED (light emitting diode), which has an estimated 100,000 life hours. Start doing the math: That’s 50 times longer than an incandescent bulb.

In making the sale to one of the many municipalities that bought the ROI argument (Boston, Denver, Manhattan, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle, and more), the sales professional would have also noted how infrequently expensive crews would have to show up and disrupt traffic while they change bulbs. They would have also noted that LED bulbs are significantly more energy-efficient and provided some numbers on cost savings related to electricity. Then there are other “soft” ROI factors such as the reliability and predictability, both of which are important for public safety. This is where human interaction would come into play as the vendor would cite instances in which cars collided or ambulances were blocked due to a failed signal.

No matter how many factors you throw in to the ROI sell, the compelling argument is that the municipality will definitely save money in the long run by converting to LED. The other factors fuel the conversation and engage the emotion of the buyer, but the winning argument is about money.

In contrast to this scenario, ROI selling is not always able to throw a bucket of cold water on the old way of doing things. And it isn’t always able to offer a hot spring of cost-savings and/or profitability with the new way of doing things. It’s usually more complicated than that. For one thing, your projections on savings or profitability will not be precisely accurate unless you are in the uncommon situation of having abundant, detailed information from the prospect. As a corollary, your best numbers will probably be a range rather than specific numbers. In ROI selling, too much specificity can undermine your assertions about the value of your product or service.

Ironically, ROI selling is a subjective process even though ROI itself is a numbers-based concept. People often feel driven to buy for reasons that have little to do with facts—intuition, personal preference, and so on—and then attempt to justify the choice with facts later. In a meeting with you, therefore, they might not be totally honest about their criteria for a decision, because they haven’t sorted them out in their own mind. And when you’re trying to convert a prospect to a customer, you may try to beef up your facts so they have emotional appeal. You rationalize that estimating returns on the high side of what’s possible is more enticing than giving a conservative set of results. This is not an evil plot to deceive the prospect; a surge of optimism has colored your presentation. In short, both parties can have motives and opportunity to manipulate the truth with the endgame in mind.

Something as simple, and relatively innocent, as giving an offhanded response to a question can trigger the body language of deception. For example, you ask your prospect about the maintenance costs of the system he has now and is looking to replace. He is not quite sure, but wants to keep the conversation moving ahead so he throws out a number. You look at him quizzically; this is an area you know well and the number seems low. He realizes he must have given you bad information; technically speaking, that’s a lie. He suddenly feels bad about what he did and starts brushing non-existent lint off the cuff of his jacket. That’s an adaptor caused by stress—and the stress was induced by the embarrassment of not being fully truthful.

For reasons like these, the chapter features insights on the body language of deception. As part of that discussion, you will see how body language can tie in with verbal signals that tell you information is missing, exaggerated, or misrepresented. You will also find insights as to how the body language of deception—yours and the client’s—might show up in the context of ROI selling.

If you can spot glitchy behavior, you can do something to bring the discussion back to the cold, hard facts—that is, the money your customer will save or make as a result of doing business with you. The process starts with accurate information. Without it, any ROI you calculate will be wrong.

We also take a look at ways of envisioning “return” that can get your prospect emotionally charged up. For example, in the realm of return on marketing investment (ROMI), the promise of a return like “increased customer loyalty” could be the most important thing on her mind. When you make your case for being able to deliver that, and she responds with the body language of acceptance, it’s time to close.

Looking for a (White) Lie

We don’t want to be harsh in using the term lie, because the chances are much greater that a variation on the truth that comes out in a meeting is inadvertent. Neither you nor your prospect walked into the room with a scheme to engage in blatant deception. That’s the stuff of con artists, not sales professionals. (This is not a book for con artists.)

What we call a lie is something that is said, or not said, that alters a fact. Intentionally rounding your estimate on the cost-savings related to a product from 40—45 percent to 45—50 percent is an exaggeration; therefore, it is technically a lie. Regardless of how reasonable it is, or whatever justification you have for providing that number, your body knows that what just came out of your mouth isn’t consistent with what you calculated—and your body is likely to produce a stress response. When you both spot these stress responses and feel that you yourself are experiencing them, you have a vastly improved ability to have a constructive conversation that builds trust.

The Whole Picture

In any conversation about body language, it’s easy to focus on the puzzle pieces and never see the completed puzzle.

Earlier in the book, we described a number of pieces: facial expressions, eye movement, nervous ticks, shift in energy, and more. Awareness of them is essential for determining a person’s baseline. Keeping your eyes on them can clue you in to a deviation from baseline. In other words, when you see variances in energy, gestures that are unusual for the person, or a number of specific facial expressions and eye movements, you are detecting some level of stress. You don’t know if the stimulus is good or bad; sensing that you are about to make a huge commission on a deal will cause a “good stress” response.

When you spot stress, you can potentially spot deception, as lying to any degree tends to arouse a stress response from normal people. But the individual deviations from what you perceived as baseline behavior may not indicate deception; you need to put the puzzle pieces together to figure that out. When you’re in a meeting with a prospect, make sure you do two things when you notice a stress response:

1.  Step back (figuratively or literally) and look at the whole person. Keep in mind culture, as well as the habits and quirks you picked up during baselining.

2.  Ask yourself, “Why? Why is this person manifesting stress now?”

The Pieces and Parts

With these thoughts in mind, here are some specific indicators of discomfort that should make you look for more evidence that they suggest there is something wrong with what you’ve just been told, or are about to be told.

Forehead

The forehead has a surprisingly broad range of abilities. By lowering the head you can gaze up at someone and look skeptical—or seductive, depending on what your eyebrows are doing. By wrinkling it, you can look quizzical, confused, or deranged. In the context of our look at deception, let’s focus on the action of the eyebrows and the grief muscles, which are between your eyebrows.

Do you see eyebrows shoot up? If you don’t detect surprise, which is one of the eight universal expressions easily identified by people around the world, then you may see a look of uncertainty. The person’s speech and face are implying question marks, regardless of whether or not he’s asking a question. If you had to write a caption for the photo of this face, it would be “You believe me, don’t you?”

This request-for-approval expression could occur after you ask a direct question, such as “How satisfied were you with your brand-building program last year?” What he says may be subjective: “We thought the program was powerful.” Inside, he’s thinking about how the numbers didn’t add up based on what it cost the company, so the statement is delivered with a question mark on his face. He wants you to believe him, even though he doesn’t believe himself.

Another clear signal that something is wrong is use of the grief muscles. These are two muscles in the center of the forehead that you rub when you’re stressed out. They will contract on a person who has genuine concern about a person, an event, or something she said. A person who told you something in an effort to deceive you—even just a little bit—might contract the grief muscles. For example, a prospect who respects what you have to offer and wants to work with you might “fudge” the company’s willingness and ability to pay your standard fee. The prospect is a person of integrity and her distortion of the truth is painful to her. It shows up in her forehead. If you see her rub that area, you have even stronger confirmation that she’s in pain over what she said to you.

In these cases, the brow is an illustrator—one of the Big Four. Again, we are talking about a movement that accentuates the message a person is conveying. In these instances, the message is not articulating it in words, although the person is still conveying it. Your prospect is not telling you the whole truth, not answering the question you asked—but the truth is circulating around in her head and that causes the stress responses in the forehead.

Eyes

Eye movement gives us rich insights into a person’s thoughts and emotions. Imagine the inside of your brain, with a portion devoted to seeing, another portion devoted to hearing, and so on. When you’re trying to remember a fact or imagine a solution to a problem, your eyes move as though they are exploring the interior of your mind. And if your eyes are really directed toward another person, that eye contact suggests your mental focus is on that individual.

A signal that your connection with someone has experienced an interruption is when the person breaks eye contact with you after you ask a question. (This can work in reverse, so check yourself out, too!) Which way are the eyes moving?

•   If the eyes go up to the left or up to the right, remember what you learned from baselining him. One direction is his recall side, and the other, imagination.

•   If the eyes go down left, it’s a sign there is calculation going on. In a meeting on ROI, this is something you’re very likely to see when you’re talking numbers.

•   If the eyes go down right, however, that suggests an emotional response. Why would someone have an emotional reaction to a question about numbers? Why would a question about numbers cause pain?

Another possible sign of deception involves touching a closed eye or just closing the eyes. Remember how you thought you could make people go away when you were a kid just by putting your hands over your eyes? Maybe you don’t because this is something very small children do. Adults sometimes carry over that behavior and will cover an eye or shut one or both eyes because they told you something that wasn’t quite true and are embarrassed about it. They want to make you “go away.” Averting the eyes with a downward or sideward glance will do the same thing.

Here is a tip about whether or not the person you are meeting with has doubts about what you have said: A clue as to how your client is responding to you, your information, or the situation is the whites of her eyes. Wide-open eyes, with lots of white (sclera) visible, signals a need to take in more information. The driving emotion could be curiosity, surprise, or fear. In all of those states, the overriding impulse is to learn more. In contrast, if the eyes narrow, thereby reducing the white, she could be angry or highly skeptical that what you just said is true.

Temples

The temple is the side of the head, just past the eyes. Tension headaches often settle there, which is why you may see people under stress rub their temples.

Temples also play a role in expression joy and pleasure. The wrinkles of a genuine smile are what we know as crow’s feet—a sure sign that you have engaged the orbicularis oculi muscles.

In contrast, a fake smile is a cover-up unless Botox is involved. (Botox is an injected drug that temporarily paralyzes muscles and is used on various parts of the face to counter wrinkles.) The person offering you a fake smile is relying solely on a different set of muscles, the zygomatic muscles, which are easily controllable muscles near the mouth. If you see the mouth smiling, but not the eyes, the person is not being honest with you. Look for brow movement that reinforces your assessment that the smile is a disguise for concern, disbelief, anger, or another emotion.

Face

Changes in skin color on the face offer excellent insights into a person’s mental state. If a person is in a state of fight or flight, for example, blood moves the muscles that need to run or do battle, so the complexion becomes pallid.

Blushing is another involuntary stress response, unless it’s suddenly gotten very warm in the room where you’re meeting. Many people blush when they are embarrassed. Awareness that they’ve lied—and, yes, exaggeration and omission of facts are types of lies—is a source of embarrassment for generally honest people.

Nose and Ears

There is a lot of blood flow to the nose and ears, and emotions, exercise, and temperature are just a few of the factors that can increase that flow.

Sometimes a person touches her nose or ears for the same reason a cat scratches its ear: it itches. Other times, it indicates sudden blood flow to the area—an involuntary stress response. In that case, there is a stress-related reason why the nose itches at that moment.

Ears are associated with a great many adaptors—those gestures that you do when you feel anxious. They are a sensitive part of the body, so it’s natural to stroke or tug them when you feel the slightest bit nervous. Often you will find women with pierced ears fiddling with an earring when they feel some stress. Knowing this, if you see some ear-focused behavior during your meeting, you should wonder what caused it. Either something about the conversation is causing tension or your client habitually plays with her earring. If you baselined well, you will be able to spot the behavioral change.

Here is something that you should keep in mind as a professional in sales: Touching your face is generally construed as a nervous gesture. It doesn’t matter if the people you’re meeting with have studied body language or not. When you touch your face, subliminally others in the meeting have a negative response. This will work against you particularly when you are trying to get buy-in. You will convey a more honest and open impression if you just keep your hands off your face.

Mouth

Many people have been credited with the thought that “The eyes are the windows to the soul.” Although that may be true, the mouth is the window to the internal dialogue.

Pursed lips, or lips drawn into the mouth as in the photo, suggest the person is holding words—and possibly emotions—back. After you see this, listen for the pace and pitch of what is said next. Is the speech halting or slower? Do you hear a change in pitch, whether higher or lower? And if you see it after the person has just responded to your question, you might wonder whether or not you received a complete answer to it. Note well: As someone in sales, how often have you given a partial answer to a question—maybe just delivering the positive vision instead of the complete picture? The next time you are about to do that, or have just done it, pay attention to what your mouth is doing.

Another action to watch for is covering the mouth, a sign of the need for protection or secrecy.

Neck and Shoulders

The neck is an especially vulnerable area of the body containing major vessels like the jugular vein and carotid artery. There is a natural instinct to protect it and when people are nervous you will see the hand go toward the notch in the neck. Women will commonly put a hand toward the neck in a protective gesture, and men who are wearing a tie will adjust the tie. Consider the opposite gesture for a moment: If a person exposes his or her neck, that’s a sign of trust or even submission.

Some people automatically put tension into the neck and shoulders. Their jaw clenches slightly. The neck muscles become taut. The shoulders rise a bit. When Maryann was in college, her friends used to tease her about this: “Whenever it’s your turn to make dinner, your shoulders are in your jawbones when you’re at the stove!” This is the kind of automatic response to tension that stays with us for life. We can raise our awareness of it and practice relaxation techniques, but when it comes to the moment when stress sets in, we tend to default.

Watch for these neck and shoulder responses after a question. If you see them, then conclude that the answer has emotion behind it. Ask yourself why. One answer could be that your prospect had never thought of that question before. Another is that she didn’t want to answer that question. Yet another is that she expected the question and has prepared an answer that is not completely truthful. Three very different scenarios.

Squared shoulders generally project authority, confidence, and precision. This is why military organizations require this posture. It can also mean the person is feeling insecure, however. Go back to the individual’s baseline. A person’s whose normal bearing does not include squared shoulders could be adopting that posture because he’s feeling uncertain about what he said or did and is overcompensating.

Take it a degree or two further. Squared shoulders present the image of being battle-ready, so a person who is so insecure that he feels threatened may square off as part of a fight-or-flight response. If you challenged the person’s facts or logic, even though you meant it as part of a productive conversation, you may have put the person into a defensive mode.

Arms and Hands

Arms and hands do a number of fascinating things together. They can serve as weapons, conveyors of affection, invitations into personal space, descriptors of objects and events, and defenders of personal safety.

Watch for hands to go from open to closed, for fidgeting fingers, or for a prop to be suddenly necessary (a pen, a phone, a paper clip). What provoked the response: a question or a statement? The abrupt change isn’t necessarily negative. It could just mean that you incited some thinking and your client has a lot of internal mental energy around what you just said.

But look closely: An abrupt change in arm position such as an open arm position to movement close to the torso, and perhaps crossed arms over the torso, can suggest discomfort. Depending on what the face and eyes are doing, of course, these movements could also suggest boredom. This is one of those many times when your preliminary conclusions cannot be based on a single gesture.

A more extreme version of the arm cross that does send a distinct signal is gripping the arms or tucking them in tightly after crossing them. The barrier is in place; at the moment, you and you ideas are not coming any closer to that client.

The discussion of arms and hands as co-conspirators in deception would not be complete with a note about batoning. Batoning is a movement in which the arm and hand are used like a conductor’s baton. The classic example is former President Bill Clinton’s use of it in his denial of having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. His hand and arm went up and down in an effort to accentuate his message—which, of course, was false.

Batoning is not always associated with deception, but if you see it used to emphasize a statement that you already suspect has holes in it, then it’s a red flag.

Legs and Feet

Our awareness of what our legs and feet are doing is often quite limited. We might feel in control of the body parts closer to the brain, like the hands and arms, but those parts below the waist sometimes seem to belong to a different person. We had personal experience with the CEO of a major multi-national company whose legs often shook uncontrollably when he was emotionally charged. Even after being reminded of this, he could not change his behavior. His strategy was to sit behind a desk or with his legs under a table to hide the problem, but he could not seem to make the problem itself go away. Let this be a reminder that legs and feet sometimes signal feelings and mental states more candidly than other body parts.

If the person is seated, crossing legs can be a subconscious way of throwing up a barrier. Look for other signs that he might feel a need for a barrier. Crossed legs sometimes mean nothing more than “this is how I make myself comfortable.” When you baselined the person, this is a distinction that may have become apparent.

Crossing ankles is generally a different message, by the way. It’s more a signal of feeling parked in a particular spot, with one possible meaning being “The meeting isn’t over yet.”

Be careful about making assumptions when you see a jiggling foot. For some people it is an adaptor, therefore a sign of stress. For many others, however, it’s just a sign of excess energy. This can be part of someone’s baseline; she’s revved up much of the time.

What if you notice that your prospect has his feet pointed toward the door? It could be that his subconscious is trying to lead his entire body toward the door. Ask yourself what happened that would cause him to want to leave the room.

Vocalics

To recap what we introduced in Chapter 2, vocalics is an area of non-verbal communication studies because it’s about how something is said rather than what is being said. The changes you hear in the characteristics of a person’s voice as well as the use of fillers like “um” and “ah” are part of the whole picture. If those vocal patterns or traits deviate sharply from what is normal for the person, then make a mental note. What was the question or comment that seemed to provoke that change?

Go a little deeper in your analysis now—a little deeper into your gut feeling, that is. Would you describe the vocal change as thoughtful, confused, antagonistic, angry, delighted? You name the response that you think pegs the mental state. Combine that judgment with what you have observed about the body language to ascertain what that person is likely thinking and feeling.

Looking for Trust

When someone believes you have the product, service, process, or model that delivers an impressive return on investment, you have inspired trust. Now you need to make sure you can spot it because, when you do, it’s time to close the deal.

Return and Investment

Although we began the chapter with the classic ROI formula, the meaning of the terms return and investment have taken on new dimensions for many people in business. With that in mind, consider how the determination of a good return could mean that the client is interested in far more than a healthy profitability. Similarly, the concept of investment can have different meanings depending on context. In a return-on-marketing-investment model, for example, the investment is logged as marketing spending that has been risked as opposed to money that is tied up in tangibles.

As a precursor to looking at management and mismanagement of the critical factors in ROI selling, consider the variations possible on the meanings of “return” and “investment.”

We all know the definition of “return” that relates to profit: numbers you can log on a spreadsheet. But the return that a major corporate donor gets for an investment in an art museum is concurrently difficult to measure and necessary to measure. If your ROI selling involves a fluid or subjective definition of return, then you have more emotions coming to the meeting that you would in conventional ROI selling.

And when emotions come into the room with your prospect, then your skill in observing body language is essential. You can try to “win” on the numbers, but strength of your position is just as we described in relationship selling: It’s a matter of how much trust you can build.

ROI is used in many ways and contexts. To some extent, it has become a catch-all for any positive outcome. Though we started this chapter with both a strict and a broad definition, there are many more uses. Here are some ways that the concept of ROI enters into the discussion in a social media context.

Peter Friedman has overseen hundreds of successful social media programs including Apple’s industry wide social network. His categorization of types, and relative merits, of return in a social media context show the scope and meaning of “return” to marketing professionals. Friedman suggests five classes of ROI:¹

1.  Social media statistics ROI. This is a tough one because the statistics alone do not give a true picture of the return. If you have 1,000 people commenting on a blog post about your new product and 800 of them are about the political orientation of the company CEO, you have great statistics with negligible return.

2.  Marketing statistics ROI. The company is trying to drive awareness, using social media to get you to pay attention to the brand. If you’re selling this concept to a company, you need buy-in on the assertion that this is a cost-effective means of outreach.

3.  Learning ROI. The big return can be getting a giant, global, virtual focus group to exchange thoughts on a product or service. Just as with the others, part of the data involves numbers of people or posts, but the return is so much more than the numbers.

4.  Relationship-building ROI. In this category, social media supports a company’s desire to connect meaningfully with customers and measure their intent to buy. Friedman notes that the big return is sweet: “Here you’re getting into the deepest potential ROI: enhanced customer relationships which ultimately become sustainable sales ROI. Relationship-building stats include increased customer loyalty, brand advocacy, and intent to buy.”²

5.  Sales ROI. This category is the big winner in terms of measureable return. According to Friedman:

There are two kinds of sales ROI from social media. There’s the direct revenue lift brands see when they push promotions through social. This is a hard ROI—but it’s limited compared to long-term sales ROI generated from relationship-building ROI when customers become active with the brand community, form a deeper relationship, and build a space for the brand and its products in their and their friends’ everyday lives. Here is where we see increased loyalty, increased lifetime customer value, and enhanced revenue growth that’s sustained over time.³

In defining “investment,” we are talking primarily about money. However, money is rarely isolated from other considerations such as time line, the degree to which tying up the money affects other needs, and the size of the investment in relation to available working capital. There is also an emotional component in some cases. For example, if the company your prospect founded just last year is considering a major capital investment, then it’s possible he is infused with optimism, fear, confusion, curiosity, and a host of other emotions. The investment will never be “just” about the money.

Success With Critical Factors

If you are at the point with your prospect that you are looking for signs of acceptance, you have succeeded in managing two critical factors in any ROI selling: clarifications on “return” and on “investment.” You accomplished:

•   Getting the answer to the question “This is a good return relative to what?”

•   Gaining a firm understanding of your prospect’s relationship to his investment.

Relative to What?

In getting the answer to the question “This is a good return relative to what?” you had to combine homework done prior to the meeting with strong rapport. Among other things, the rapport should give you the hurdle rate—that is, the minimum rate the company expects to earn as a result of investing in a product or project. Rapport should also yield insights about business dealings that have made your prospect delighted in the past, as well as those that have disappointed him. As a corollary, you know the scope of his definition of the word return—whether it’s “just” money, money that brings with it other non-monetary rewards, or both.

A few years ago, the development officer for a new children’s museum approached the chair of the city council and asked her to introduce a proposal for annual city funding for the museum. On the surface, the return would be a boost to the chair’s political capital—the goodwill that would get her re-elected. But there were lots of things the chair could do to generate goodwill. Why was this action any better? The return the development officer described took her breath away: The museum was located in the poorest city neighborhood, which was where she grew up. The funding would provide daily, after-school learning programs for every child in that neighborhood who wanted to participate. The return was both practical from a political standpoint and emotionally satisfying on a personal level.

Relationship to Investment

Gaining a firm understanding of your prospect’s relationship to his investment includes multiple factors. They include what he considers a sizable versus a minor investment, what kind of time line he expects, and how he expects reporting to be done. Although this sounds like straightforward information collection, the reality is that people sometimes feel differently about these factors than their words would suggest. Your challenge is to pick up with the signals the prospect is unintentionally sending.

Maryann witnessed a colossal failure related to this second point; it’s the opposite of managing the critical factor! She was hired as a consultant to a startup company in the medical technology field. Jed, the company founder, invited her to sit in on several meetings with potential investors so she could help him improve his presentation. The first prospect was a gentleman who belonged to the same country club as Jed. This fact had convinced Jed that the sell would be easy; he made an assumption that their common enjoyment of golf and their club would infuse the potential investor with a sense of trust. His attitude prevented him from doing any serious homework before the meeting about the man’s current investments, and he didn’t bother to ask him any questions about them during the meeting. He was flying blind, asking for a million dollars on the basis of tribal affiliation.

“I know you trust me to deliver,” Jed told him. “And I will deliver! Within three years, you should see a four-to-one return on your money.”

Maryann knew there was no reason for optimism when the potential investor got up from the small conference table and walked over to his desk. He sat down behind the desk and took out a piece of paper. Within a minute, he had drawn a series of squares on it. He drew a total of 36 squares on the page as she and Jed watched. The investor put “($1,000,000)” in the first square, signifying that he was in the hole one million dollars. He then put ditto marks in every other box, signifying that he was in the hole one million dollars for 36 months.

The investor’s priorities included a time line as well as rate of return—something that Jed would have known if he looked at prospect’s patterns of investment and had a conversation with him about what he considered a reasonable duration to tie up his money.

The investor’s immediate use of a barrier to separate himself from the encounter, as well as the silence he used to put even more distance between himself and Jed, were clear signs the meeting should end immediately. But Jed persisted in his misperception that their common social experience would hold the conversation together so that he could prevail. The investor was visibly perturbed; a look of contempt on his face was combined with clasped hands on the desk, furthering shielding the prospect from Jed.

Knowing the meeting needed to end promptly, Maryann got up and thanked the gentleman for his time. Jed reluctantly got up and approached the desk, suggesting with his body language that he wanted to shake the man’s hand. The investor’s hands remained clasped and he did not get up to usher them out.

Signs of Moving Toward Acceptance

Earlier in the book, we covered the basic body language of acceptance. A number of indicators prior to actual acceptance tell you that you are on the right track.

Even before you see a genuine smile, you will notice the prospect directing his energy toward you. Good eye contact, active listening, and mirroring all indicate that your rapport is strengthening.

Movements like nods and leaning in will encourage you to keep talking. You will also see arms and posture conveying relaxation and connection. Part of the sense of openness is that barriers will be minimized or removed entirely. Once you and your product or service has been accepted, there is no need to maintain distance or barriers.

Summary Points

•   ROI selling is number-based, but both “return” and “investment” can have non-monetary meanings. Whatever definition you use, ROI selling is never just about money; it’s about human interaction.

•   ROI selling is a subjective process even though ROI itself is a numbers-based concept.

•   Something as innocent as giving an off-handed response to a question about maintenance costs, for example, can trigger the body language of deception.

•   If you can spot the behavior of deception, you can do something to bring the discussion back to core agenda—that is, the money your customer will save or make as a result of doing business with you.

•   A lie is something that is said, or not said, that alters a fact. Regardless of how reasonable the statement is, your body knows that what just came out of your mouth isn’t consistent with what is in your head and/or heart—and your body will produce a stress response.

•   Every part of a person’s body tells a story about his or her emotional response to what you’ve done. In ROI selling, we are focused on stress, with signs of deception, so look forehead to feet.

•   The characteristics of voice—tone, pitch, or pace—that a person uses to answer your questions are important if they are different from what you’ve heard before.

You have won if you have managed the two critical factors:

1.   Getting the answer to the question “This is a good return relative to what?”

2.   Gaining a firm understanding of your prospect’s relationship to his investment.

•   When you think you have “won,” look for confirmation in the body language of acceptance.