2
set the stage
(STEP ONE: TRUST AND AGENDA)
If people like you, they’ll listen to you. But if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.
Beth and Amy didn’t have Alex’s problem of establishing rapport. These two women created tech solutions for Fortune 500 companies and were even part of the team that took a tech company public; meeting new people, pushing new ideas, and winning minds over to their way of thinking were all part and parcel of their careers.
They founded an educational technology company before edtech start-ups were even a thing. After getting it off the ground, they began seeking investors to help them launch their platform globally. They ran in venture capital circles and had contacts in the private equity world from their previous experiences. They had pre-existing relationships with many of these people, so rapport wasn’t an issue. Their problem?
Trust.
Not in the sense that they weren’t trustworthy, but in a “these people don’t inspire confidence” sort of way. When they got in front of a potential investor, they lost their poise. They got so emotionally wound up in their desire to land this investor that their rational brains were overwhelmed by their fear of not landing the sale (or, to be more accurate, the investment).
It’s one thing when you pitch investors on behalf of your employer; it’s a completely different experience when you do the same on your own behalf. This edtech was Beth and Amy’s baby. They had dreamed it up, created it, and nurtured it. When the product is your passion, it’s hard (almost impossible, actually) to completely detach yourself emotionally.
On top of that, by the time they were introduced to me, they’d almost exhausted their network. They’d been told no so many times that they were gun-shy. And on top of that, they were almost out of money and running on fumes. (Ever experience something similar? I have.)
The April 2012 issue of Scientific American reviewed a number of studies on the causes of anxiety. Researchers pointed out that any perceived stress, whether an attacking bear or the prospect of public speaking, triggers the same kind of physiological responses. The result: shrinkage of the prefrontal cortex while our body shifts to fight or flight mode. That’s the part of the brain that allows for abstract thought, rational thought, short- and long-term memory, “social control,” and more. To put it bluntly, when we’re stressed, the smart part of our brain goes numb.
This, I suspect, is why the pair performed tremendously in a low-key setting but lost that sense of calm self-confidence when presenting to people who could bring their baby to life with one check—or not.
Half of Step One is trust. Alex didn’t have any trouble establishing credibility; he knew how to deliver and could clearly demonstrate his expertise. Beth and Amy, however, sold something less concrete, plus the stakes were much higher—by millions of dollars.
They felt that pressure. This, plus the other stress factors, would play havoc with anyone’s psychology. When they got up to pitch, it was almost as if they self-sabotaged. Yes, asking people for a few million dollars is nerve-wracking—especially if you’ve been told no as many times as they had—but that’s multiplied for introverts. In fact, studies have clearly shown a correlation between introversion and anxiety. Extroverts literally don’t get as anxious as we do. (Lucky them.)
No wonder two introverts got in their own way trying to win millions of dollars for an educational product that, for them, was more than a company—it was a cause, a life’s mission. The people they pitched to, though, were used to hearing that someone’s start-up was “the next Twitter.” The duo’s apparent lack of confidence in themselves appeared as a lack of confidence in their product. They had great media, awesome success stories, impressive experience, and a killer pitch deck, yet they reeked of desperation. Whoever was in front of them was their next final hope.
Not the most inspiring view for a venture capitalist (VC).
Rachel Botsman’s 2012 TED talk underscores just how crucial trust is for business today. If you want someone’s business or buy-in, they need to trust you. That is, you need a certain amount of social capital invested in a person before you can make a withdrawal of the same. In the world of venture capital, having faith in the leaders and management team of the start-up is increasingly important as more and more start-ups clamor for the same pool of money. After all, the VC needs to be confident that not only can you close them, but that you can also close on the next ten big customers so you can recoup their investment and go on to make some serious money.
Beth and Amy needed to reduce their anxiety so they could project more confidence in the room, stay relaxed instead of feeling defensive, and focus on gaining that initial sense of trust.
THE POWER OF INDIFFERENCE VS.
THE REEK OF DESPERATION
We tackled a small problem that unlocked the bigger one.
First, they needed to emotionally detach themselves from the pitch. Easier said than done, right? It’s just like landing a job: If you only have one interview lined up, then all your eggs are in one basket. You have to get this job or else you go hungry.
The same was true for them. Because they usually had just one investment meeting lined up, all their eggs were in that one basket. If they didn’t get this investor, then they were back to nothing.
Career books often advise you to never go into an interview without at least two more lined up. That way, you know that even if you don’t nail this one, you have more in the wings. For Beth and Amy, that meant never going into a pitch without having another one already lined up. It meant doing more hustling and having more potential “customers” in the pipeline. That, in turn, meant getting out of their comfort zone, reaching outside of their established contacts, chasing introductions, approaching VCs cold . . . and lots and lots of networking. Not something any introvert wants to do.
However, in those calls, they weren’t trying to sell potential investors on the idea of their company. (That’s what the pitch was for.) Rather, they were just trying to garner enough interest to set a meeting (for which they also had a scripted routine, aka process).
Even if that meant meeting with prospects more for the practice than the potential, it provided the bigger benefit: They knew that even if they bombed today’s meeting, they had another one tomorrow. Plus, they could also casually share with each new investor how well their pitch from earlier that day or yesterday went, or how much they were looking forward to the other pitch later that day or the next. Hardly the “broke and desperate for your money” vibe many investors are used to.
They used to put these investors on a pedestal, but I pointed out that they’re just people, too. Sometimes they have fights with their spouse, sometimes they forget to open the garage before backing out, and sometimes their socks don’t match. They’re just people. When Beth and Amy met with them, I wanted them to see them as people, not as gods holding the keys to the pearly gates.
All of this let them distance themselves from being so emotionally involved in the meeting in front of them. With less worry and anxiety about the outcome of any one pitch, their confidence and natural poise came to the forefront in each meeting.
This tactic also helped them view winning investors as a process instead of a chance opportunity. Instead of hoping and praying that this VC would see the light and write a check, they could treat the investor more objectively. While they still cared, of course, they didn’t care as fervently about any one conversation.
It was like finding the pressure relief valve. Once they had more people waiting in the wings and a growing pipeline of possible offers, I could almost hear the steam escaping as they prepped for their upcoming meetings. They were able to relax, have great conversations, start off on the right foot, and start to win VCs over . . . and it wasn’t long before they had two multimillion-dollar investment offers.
I used a similar tactic to coach Meredith at IBM. She earned well into the six-figure range, but she’d had the same job for years. She loved the culture at IBM, but she was frustrated by being constantly passed over for opportunities and promotions.
The problem I saw was that she was too worried about her boss’s opinion. If he didn’t want to promote her and she aggressively pushed, she worried she would be further marginalized.
I coached her to go interview for other positions. Not that she truly wanted to leave, but she needed leveraging power with her employer. She knew that she didn’t really want another job, so she wasn’t desperate. Without the stress of needing a job, she wasn’t emotionally tied up in the outcome. Our agreement, however, was that if another corporation offered her at least a 10 percent raise and IBM wouldn’t match it, she’d have to take it. She agreed and went job hunting.
She told me later that if she’d been unemployed or facing a retrenchment, she couldn’t have been cool-headed. She would have let the situation affect her judgment. She went into these interviews “indifferent about them,” she said.
In no time, she had an offer from ANZ Bank, the largest bank in New Zealand and fourth-largest in Australia, with operations in thirty other countries. ANZ offered her a dream job at 12 percent more than her current salary.
For the first time in her career at IBM, she met with her boss indifferent to his opinion. She informed him of her decision, but allowed IBM to make a counteroffer, if it wanted to. Within one week, she was recommended to the global strategy team and offered a raise of nearly $100,000.
No, this story isn’t about how Meredith used my sales process to leverage herself into a far larger role (although she used elements of it). This story mirrors Beth and Amy’s in that it serves to illustrate how differently we introverts come across under stress versus when we have options; it shows what happens when an introvert can afford to be indifferent.
THE SYSTEM OVER THE SALE
Forgive me if it sounds like I’m beating a dead horse, but Beth and Amy’s story underlines the most important takeaway in this book: focus on the system, not the sale.
Many, and perhaps even most, sales books talk about the tactics you should use while in a sale: “Use words the prospect uses.” “Mirror their mannerisms.” “Say their name often.” “Ask for the sale!” And so on.
But look at the underlying message of that line of thinking: It focuses on getting this sale. It says, “If you don’t get the sale, you did something wrong; that’s on you. If you do everything you’re supposed to do, you’ll reel ’em in.”
Except that’s not true. No matter how good you are, you’ll never convert 100 percent of potential customers. I wish I could convert 100 percent of the people who approach me. No one’s that good.
But in popular sales thinking, you just shake it off and try to win the next one. You’re a knight trying to slay the dragon, a caveman who must kill the woolly mammoth or go hungry.
That’s all wrong. What’s more, for introverts like you and me, it puts an enormous amount of pressure on us. We know we’re not extroverts. We already feel like the cards are stacked against us. Every time we don’t make a sale, it only increases our anxiety about making the next one. It’s a death spiral.
Once Beth and Amy started lining up multiple meetings, I helped them look at the roster of potential investors to see that, while the odds were low that every meeting would result in securing funding, the odds were good that a handful of meetings would.
That gave them a sense of being able to predict that some of their pitches would, in fact, bomb. But it also helped them divest themselves emotionally from the outcome of any one meeting. The noes didn’t affect them as much because they focused on improving the system.
This let them emotionally unhook themselves even more. If the outcome wasn’t what they hoped, they didn’t take it personally. There was a problem with their process, not with them. A rejection meant “You didn’t properly sell to me,” instead of “You’re an awful person with a stupid idea.”
That’s what I need you to grasp. What I’m sharing with you in this book is not how to land the sale. That puts the focus on the micro. I want to give you the tools to build a factory-like process that delivers reliable results. We’re focusing on the widget-building machine, not the individual widgets—the system over the sale.
Or, to look at it another way, we’re just running a series of experiments. Just like in a real-world science experiment, you need a series of repetitious steps. You hold everything constant (i.e., you do everything exactly the same way each and every time) except for one variable. You change one thing at a time to see how it affects the results. After you achieve some kind of improvement, you repeat the same experiment multiple times to verify the results.
That’s what you’re doing in building your own sales system. You constantly tweak one piece of the process at a time—be it a joke, a story, or a question—over a number of sales to see whether it helps or hurts your success rate. Because your customers, the market, and your business are always changing, the accompanying sales process must necessarily change, too.
If something fails, scientists don’t take it personally. The failure doesn’t mean they’re not supposed to be a scientist. It just means the experiment didn’t work. They change something and try again. In trying to invent a long-lasting light bulb, Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Lucky for you, I’ve found at least one way that does work.
THE IMPORTANCE OF TRUST
I shouldn’t have to tell you that basic trust is important.
Except I do.
You know it, of course. Everyone does. But when we go to sell something to someone, we often get so focused on trying to cross the chasm that we forget to build a bridge first.
The most important element of any building is the foundation. If you don’t do it right, then everything you build on top of it soon collapses. For example, we introverts often like to skip the pleasantries and get down to business. My dad, an introvert himself, used to say, “I wish people would just cut the crap and get to the point.” (Lucky for him, he had a job, not a business.)
Often, we want to fix the problems we see. For almost all the introverts I know and work with, authenticity is key to their whole approach to life and business . . . but the person on the other end of the phone line doesn’t know that. Without first winning their trust, our excitement to fix their problem comes off as gimmicky or salesy. You have to earn a prospect’s trust.
In Dr. Robert Cialdini’s Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, the author rode around with a company’s number one residential salesperson to discover what made him so much better than his counterparts, month after month after month. After several sales calls, Cialdini couldn’t discern any noticeable difference. The salesman appeared to use the same process and approach as the other salespeople Cialdini had seen. After pestering him with questions and observations, he finally got the salesman to admit his secret.
A few minutes into each sales call, the salesman would say, “Oh, I forgot something in the car. I don’t want to bother you: would you mind if I let myself out and back in?” Often, this entailed the homeowners giving him the house key . . . and that was his secret.
As he explained it to Cialdini, you’re going to give your key only to someone you trust. The sales prospects’ very act of handing him the key told some subconscious part of their mind that they trusted him. It sounds too simple to work—as will many of the things you’ll read in this book—but his commission checks said otherwise.
When I ran a residential sales team, if someone was invited into a prospect’s home, the very first question asked was, “Would you like me to take my shoes off before I come in?” It showed basic respect for the home and the homeowner. It didn’t matter what the response was. What mattered is that it showed the prospect that the sales rep was considerate. Again, it sounds simple, but one time a salesman named Jude hit a slump, and I told him to call me during his next sales meeting that wasn’t going well. When my phone rang, before I even let him tell me what was going on, I said, “Jude, look down. Tell me what you see.”
“Crap—you’re going to tell me it’s because my shoes are on, right?”
He got back into the routine of taking his shoes off at the door, and his numbers soon returned to normal. Again, it’s almost too elementary to work, but his commission checks told the tale.
It’s also polite to accept someone’s offer of hospitality. If I went to someone’s office and the person offered me a drink, I always accepted. Always. It seems like a small thing, but it’s a thread that connects you to each other. Usually, I was offered tea or coffee. In afternoon meetings, I’d make the joke, “Thank you, but I’ve already had three coffees in my last three meetings. One more’s going to send me over the top!” After we laughed, I’d then say, “But I’d love some water, if you have some.”
Today, my go-to is saying that I’d love some water, as I gave up coffee because it played havoc with my mood. Instead, I’ve switched to yerba mate tea—have they heard about it? That opens a discussion on the benefits of coffee minus the side effects, the sacrifice of giving up coffee, and whether it’s worth it or not. I get to share something that I’m passionate about and we get to share the joke about what it’s like to give up coffee.
Trust: it’s the basis of everything else.
I tackle trust from two angles: the personal (i.e., rapport) and the professional (i.e., credibility). If people like you but don’t believe you can do the job, then they might enjoy their time with you, but they’re not going to open their wallet. If, on the other hand, you impress them with your prowess, yet they don’t feel any sort of personal connection with you . . . they’re not going to open their wallet.
You have to win the customer on both fronts.
QUICKLY ESTABLISHING RAPPORT
As we discussed before, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Again, it’s a cliché, but probably because so many people find it true. The underlying idea is certainly true in sales. In selling on Sydney Road, when I got in front of the business owner, I’d launch straight into my spiel. Without any kind of rapport—without any sort of personal connection—I was just a commodity, a nameless, faceless salesman trying to land a sale. (Oh, and of course, on top of that, they saw me as rude.) When, instead, I began each conversation as if it were a conversation . . . it was amazing. Establishing even the slightest connection on a personal level helped make a person’s attitude toward me more positive.
If you called up an old friend to ask for a favor, would you begin by just launching into what you need? Probably not. You’d ask a question about how they and their loved ones were doing. You’d ask about their well-being. You’d ask a question that had nothing to do with the reason for your phone call but showed that you cared about them on a personal level.
Now, you don’t want to ask about someone’s spouse the first time you meet them. That gets awkward quickly. You don’t need to ask about their health. That’d be disingenuous. The general idea here is to ask a question or make an open-ended statement that somehow gets a response from them. At a granular level, the subconscious feeling is that if you’re willing to ask a question that has nothing to do with the reason you’re there and, more important, listen to their response . . . well, maybe, just maybe, you’re not just a money-grubbing salesperson after their checkbook. Maybe you’re human. Maybe you’ll actually listen to the rest of what they have to say throughout the conversation.
How can you appropriately break the ice and start a sales meeting without it feeling . . . well, salesy? Here are some of the rapport starters I’ve used or coached others to use over the years:
Traffic (as you saw in Chapter 1): “Wow, sorry for being a couple of minutes late. Traffic seems to be getting worse and worse in this city, doesn’t it! How long does it take you to commute home from here?”
Geography (if by phone): “I saw from your LinkedIn profile that you’re in [city]? You know, I once [lived/visited/passed through/read about/know someone who lived] there. Is it as good as it sounds?”
Weather (always a go-to): “Wow, isn’t this weather [hot/cold/great/crazy]? I don’t remember it being like this last year, do you?”
Last holiday: “I hope you had a great [St. Patrick’s Day/Mardi Gras/Independence Day/Valentine’s Day].”
Upcoming holiday: “I can’t believe it’s almost [Cinco de Mayo/Thanksgiving/Boxing Day], can you? Have any fun plans?”
If in someone’s home: “Oh, what a lovely home. How long have you lived here?”
If in retail: “I noticed you looking at [something]. Is that what brought you out today?”
(By the way, if you’re in retail, don’t ever ask, “Can I help you?” We’ve all grown so accustomed to telling salespeople no that it’s almost an automatic response.)
On Sydney Road, sometimes all I needed to do was empathize with the shop owner after a difficult customer finally left: “Looks like you’re having a hard day, too!”
Again, I don’t want you to memorize these lines. I want you to come up with two or three rapport builders that come naturally and work for you—and, more important, your clients.
When you ask a personal (or personable) question, you go from being a nameless, faceless salesperson to an actual human being. We love to buy, but we don’t like to be sold. To help someone treat you not as a salesperson but as something else—an adviser, a professional service provider, a consultant—you first have to take “salesperson” off your forehead. Prospects need to see you as more than just someone trying to sell something.
Have you ever been to another country where you didn’t speak the language? Or at least around people who didn’t speak yours? A friend of mine once traveled to Thailand. He was standing in a group of people who were chatting away in Thai, ignoring him. They weren’t being rude; it was as if he were an object of curiosity. When he spoke a few words of halting Thai, their whole demeanor changed. It was as if they were seeing him as a person for the first time.
This is what it’s like when you make any kind of a personal connection with someone. You go from being an annoyance or potential source of tension to a living, breathing, human being. By getting them to warm up to you, you’re thawing their automatic defenses. I remember when I was twenty-one, I went into a clothing shop looking for a shirt for a big Saturday night out with friends. (I hate clothes shopping, but some of my pals were gym nuts, and I wanted to look as good as they did—they could wear a ten-dollar T-shirt and look amazing. Not me.) One of the floor clerks took me under his wing and gave me some sound fashion advice. He educated me on what worked for me and what didn’t. When we found something I liked, he showed me matching items, explained why they complemented what we’d already chosen, and kept telling me how confident I’d feel out on the town. He helped me put together a few outfits that looked amazing and made me feel even better. I thought to myself, I’ve finally found a fashion adviser I can trust. I walked in to get maybe a shirt and walked out with $3,000 worth of clothes.
That’s the power of trust.
You can’t blame people for being on guard 24-7. We’re all bombarded with sales and marketing messages, from our phones to our Google searches to our radios and even our e-readers. Everyone’s trying to make a buck. In addition to all that, we have to worry about Nigerian princes trying to scam us. You know the saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Everyone’s wary, and rightly so, which is why establishing trust is more important than ever.
If your intentions are right (and they absolutely should be), you’re trying to provide a product or service that people actually need or want. It should make their lives easier, help them solve a problem, make them money, save them money, or in some way truly benefit them. You want to set yourself apart from the pack and show that you’re just a normal human being. You’re not trying to grab their money and run. You don’t want to fleece them out of their hard-earned dollars/euros/yen/whatever. You just want to see if there’s a fit between where they are and what you have.
Once you establish rapport, you’re already halfway to earning their basic trust. And again, you want to do this in a way that is congruent with who and what you are. You should never have to feel inauthentic or deceptive to succeed in business. I’ve sold millions upon millions of dollars’ worth of products and services. I’ve never once walked away feeling inauthentic.
The key to that is rapport combined with credibility.
QUICKLY ESTABLISHING CREDIBILITY
This book isn’t all about door-to-door sales or cold-calling. However, if introverts can successfully tackle those worst-case scenarios with my system, then they can make it work in less challenging environments.
It used to be that a salesperson was a customer’s primary source of information on the company. Today, savvy buyers do their homework online before ever reaching out to sellers in the first place. Deloitte’s Digital 2015 survey found that 76 percent of shoppers interact with brands or products before ever stepping into a brick-and-mortar store. Your marketing has to do a lot of the heavy lifting these days.
But even if your potential customers think they know who you are and what you provide . . . do they really? Can you really trust that they’ve done their homework and understand the full value you bring to the table, over and above your competitors? I wouldn’t bet on it.
Although Beth and Amy had a “product” to sell, they were the ones approaching the VCs. They couldn’t assume that the person in front of them had done much background research on them, if any. As such, they couldn’t rely on their marketing to establish their credibility.
I’m going to assume something similar about you. If you have a fantastic marketing system, great; it will make what you apply from this book that much more effective. Conversely, you may have an awful marketing system. Or you may have absolutely nothing. (If yours is the latter, don’t despair: Sometimes having a bad one is worse than not having one at all.) For our purposes here, let’s assume that your marketing is basically nonexistent. As such, you can’t rely on your marketing to establish your credibility and earn prospects’ basic trust.
Most of us skip this. We’re so familiar with what we do, what we offer, and how valuable our services are that we often forget to properly introduce ourselves to potential customers. On the other hand, you probably don’t want to feel like you’re bragging on yourself. Helping people appreciate the level of value you can deliver often does feel like you’re showing off. But you have to assume that the person on the other side of the desk or the phone doesn’t immediately understand your value. Until you prove yourself otherwise, you’re just a commodity.
I worked with professional speaker Jim Comer, who fell into this common trap. While he did a great job of developing rapport and guiding the conversation, he failed to establish his professional credibility. He assumed that when someone called him, they knew his professional background and his level of expertise.
When they got to the part of the conversation where he quoted his fee, he’d often hear them say, “Wow, that’s much higher than the other person I reached out to.” He immediately felt angry. In his mind, the prospect didn’t value his worth. I mean, he’s written for Joan Rivers and Bob Hope, had op-ed pieces published in the New York Times and the Washington Post, presented on hundreds of stages to thousands of people, worked with Fortune 500 companies for nearly three decades—he has an impressive résumé.
The potential client didn’t know all that. They’d just gotten off the phone with a person half his age who had three speeches to his name in total. The problem was, Jim failed to adequately inform them of his comparative worth.
It wasn’t their fault they had sticker shock; it was his.
But how do you appropriately present all that experience without it being a turnoff? Jim and I worked together to create a low-key lead-in that worked for him. We wanted to present his impressive background without making it seem like he was bragging.
While I can’t share Jim’s exact script, what we came up with was along these lines:
[After the rapport starter] I always like to know how people found me. Was it by chance the YouTube video of me speaking at the National Automobile Dealers Association? I’m quite proud of that moment: 25,000 people in the audience and, last I checked, 65,000 shares.
It doesn’t matter how they found him; the question is an excuse to tell a story that demonstrates he’s not working for peanuts at local meet-and-greet events. He’s not bush league; he’s major league.
Scott, a consultant I worked with, made this more explicit. After a little chitchat, he’d outline the meeting’s agenda for the potential client and then, after some initial questions, he’d say, “I’d like to tell you about some of the clients like yourself that I’ve had the opportunity work with . . .”
When he got to that part of the discussion, he’d say:
Okay, that gives me a great idea of where you’re coming from. You sound exactly like the type of client I work with. I’m not sure if you saw this on my website: I’ve had the great fortune of working with high-level clients across many diverse industries such as Microsoft, Macy’s, Porsche, and Starbucks. I must say I love that I get to meet and work with such an elite group of exceptional people.
He’d go on for just a minute or so, but in doing this, he firmly established that he worked with upper-echelon types. It sent the signal that he was a serious player and respected by the experts he worked with.
Before introducing this into his sales meetings, Scott experienced similar reactions to Jim when he presented his high price: “Wow, I’m in the wrong business.” “Oh, um, okay. Does that come with any guarantees?” Or, worst of all, “Okay, let me think about that and get back to you.” That last line inevitably leads to the torture of back-and-forth voice mails and emails, only to never close the deal. Ugh.
Once Scott began establishing his credibility up front, even if he was still outside of the person’s budget, the responses were markedly different: “Wow, I wish I could afford you!” Or, “That seems reasonable. It’s just a bit beyond what we’re able to do right now,” or, “Okay, let me try to figure something out and get back to you.” His favorite: “[under their breath] Man, I really want this.”
But he’d also hear the answer he was looking for more often: “Sounds great, let’s do it.” “Perfect. Do you have a contract I can look at?” Or, “Okay, let me talk to my partners and convince them, too.”
Do you see the difference? It goes from them wondering, Is this guy really worth this much? to, Wow, this guy is the real deal! Hope I can afford him! It gives the potential customer clues on how to accurately peg your worth, instead of the customer simply relying on their often ill-informed idea of how much something should cost.
Yes, I know quiet and shy people often don’t like to draw attention to themselves, especially explicitly. You don’t have to stand on a soapbox and list your impressive accomplishments. All you need to do is find a way to hint at your professional experience. Do it quickly, but do it well.
Offer to send them something: “Before I forget, let me get your email address and I’ll send you a newspaper article on our recent award-winning design for the downtown convention center.”
Ask how they found you (à la Jim Comer).
Refer to something they read on your website: “As you probably read on my testimonial page . . .”
Mention a high-level meeting you were recently in: “You know, when I met with the regional director for Capital One a few weeks ago, she thought the market . . .”
Apologize for being a little off your game because of the big trip or impressive project you just wrapped up.
Again, you don’t need to send your résumé. You just want to clue them into the fact that you’re definitely not the lowest bidder, that you know your stuff, that you’re a professional, and that you’re not desperate.
NO HIDDEN AGENDA
My approach to sales isn’t about parroting what successful people have done. It’s about learning how and why they did it so that you can translate it into something that works for your specific market.
Remember Jude who always forgot to take his shoes off? He was great at establishing rapport and demonstrating basic business competence. After that, though, he struggled through the sale. Prospects acted guarded, defensive, closed. Each conversation started off so warmly, it perplexed him why they began to freeze up soon afterward. He chalked it up to people’s basic distrust of salespeople.
I sat with him through a couple of sales and identified the disconnect. After the initial banter and establishment of credibility, Jude began asking probing questions (Step Two) to help him identify the customer’s pain points. Like any salesperson worth his salt, Jude wanted to sell the person what they truly needed and frame it in the way that best appealed to them (Step Four).
But the customer didn’t know that.
All they saw was a total stranger who went from charmer to interrogator. He asked questions about their business, their expenses, and more—information they would never want their competitors to know. Why should they volunteer all of that to some random salesman? Where was he going with all this?
I said, “Look, mate, it’s not that they don’t trust you. It’s just that you haven’t given them a reason to trust you enough. They have no context for why you need these specific details. You know what you’re aiming at—that you’re trying to make their business more profitable and efficient—but they have no idea.”
The line we came up with was:
Now, I’m going to need to ask you a few questions about your phone usage and how your business operates. That way, I can tailor a solution that best suits your needs. Is that okay?
By giving them this simple outline of an agenda, his customers had a frame of reference for his questions. Instead of being immediately defensive, they could see that he was actually trying to figure out how to best help them.
Just as important, by asking, “Is that okay?” he got them to grant him permission for the coming barrage. Instead of being the passive recipient of his questions, they subconsciously engaged as a participant in the Q&A. Of course, no one ever said no. They no longer felt “sold to”; they instead saw Jude as a knowledgeable consultant offering a customized solution.
Better yet, this nips a problem we all have in the bud. You’ve been in a meeting where you barely get started and the prospect says, “Look, how much is this going to cost?” By laying out an agenda, you send the message that they aren’t simply buying a commodity: this is a consultation to understand their needs and communicate your benefits, not a sales pitch to see if they’ll buy.
Whereas Jude gave just a brief precursor, Scott laid out his entire agenda. After he joked or chitchatted with the person on the other end of the line, he’d say,
[Name], I’m so glad you called. Before I tell you a little about me, my process, and the type of clients I work with, I’d love to hear a little about you and what prompted your call today.
This accomplishes a number of things. First, it signals to the client that Scott has a process and knows what he’s doing. He’s had these conversations so many times that he knows exactly how they should go. Second, it puts him firmly in the driver’s seat. This is a call wherein Scott’s already established an agenda; the client simply has to play their part.
As a result, it allows the client to actually relax. Even though Scott’s ideal client is a type A personality used to taking charge, he’s found that they appreciate being able to trust that Scott knows what he’s doing. Because they see that he knows what he’s doing, they can sit back and enjoy the ride.
SHOW THEM THE SCRIPT
In fact, Scott has his sales system down to such an art, he’s had people tell him how much they enjoyed the call—not only the conversation, but experiencing a true sales professional in action. This, from a man who once believed he couldn’t sell.
Before this, Scott hated sales. He spent all his time working on his marketing, hoping it would do all the work for him. When he got on a call, his “strategy” was to just ask questions and keep the conversation rolling until the prospect finally asked about price.
Today, Scott continues to close $50,000 and $75,000 sales from customers calling him out of the blue. The difference for him is profound: He has a routine to follow, which removes the pressure to “get it right this time” (like Beth and Amy) and, second, he enjoys the sales process now. It’s no longer a nightmarish beast to be conquered but a performance to deliver to an appreciative audience. His calm voice, confident demeanor, and optimism about the potential for a sale set the tone for a great conversation . . . and the client feels it.
This echoes Disney’s approach to its theme parks. Disney parks have a specific vocabulary to reinforce the idea that their customers don’t come to ride a roller coaster; they come to experience the magic of Disney. Their employees are “cast members,” being in the park is “on-stage,” being in noncustomer areas is “off-stage,” customers are not customers but “guests.”
While I’m not suggesting that you dress up like Tinker Bell, I do want to emphasize the point that a sales meeting is often the first true impression a prospect has of you, one that will last for the rest of your relationship.
Set the stage.
DON’T LET YOUR CUSTOMERS RUN YOUR MACHINES
Ever watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Willy Wonka hides away in his candy factory for years, quietly and consistently making delicious candy bars. He lets the kids in for one day and everything goes to hell.
The kids loved Wonka’s chocolate but of course had no idea what to do inside the factory. They knew what they wanted, but only the little orange guys (Oompa Loompas) knew how to make the machines work together to consistently produce it. Those meddling kids messed up everything.
It’s the same way with your sales system. You’re creating a process for an aspect of your business. If you want a consistent result, you need a consistent process.
Who sees how the process runs every single time? You do. Therefore, who’s the most qualified to dictate how the process runs? You are, of course.
On the flip side, who’s the least exposed to the process? First-time customers. Therefore, who’s the least qualified to dictate how your process runs? Them.
You have to establish an agenda so that the sales process runs according to plan. Without an agenda—or worse, by letting the prospect take the reins—you’re following them. Their first goal isn’t the long-term success of your business or career. You can’t entrust your well-being to someone else. You have to steer the conversation. You have to control how things unfold. You have to “run program.” It’s your welfare on the line—not theirs.
Here’s the flip side of that: If you’re not leading the conversation . . . well, then you’re not leading the conversation. You’ve allowed a customer to come into the chocolate factory and start fiddling with all the levers and gears. They don’t know how to deliver the final product (a successful sale that both parties feel great about). That’s your job. It’s your factory, your production line. You’re in charge of quality control and ensuring the consistency of process.
Give them the tour—but don’t give them the reins.