Oct

19

Throw Out Your “Selling” Language - Unlock Your Natural Voice

October 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I was sitting at my desk last week when my phone rang. I picked it up and said, “This is Ari with Unlock The Game.” The woman on the other end of the phone said, “Hi, my name is Julie Jackson, I’m with XYZ company and we are a…and we offer…”. As she continued to speak, I stopped her in mid-sentence and said, “Hi, Julie.”

There was dead silence on the phone.

I could sense her struggling to react to my spontaneous overture at making personal, genuine contact. She was so locked into her presentation or script that she had no idea how to respond to me.

The idea of just conversing with me in her most natural way was a completely foreign concept.

(She eventually took a deep breath and we transitioned into a very pleasant conversation about the possibility of us being a “fit”.)

What has happened to us?

Can’t we just strike up a conversation with people we don’t know and build a relationship that way?

It’s ironic that most of us take it for granted that spontaneous, natural communication is the right way to relate to our friends, spouses, relatives, and others in our personal lives — but, when it comes to selling, our language becomes, almost robotic.

Why the breakdown?

Because when we make a sales call, we want something. The people we’re talking with sense this immediately. They put up their guard. Our hidden agenda and their reaction immediately destroy the trust-building process of communication.

We go into our personal relationships wanting to simply know the other person. But we go into sales situations with agendas and assumptions.

And because we’ve been conditioned that a sale can happen only if we control the process, we never even consider the possibility that there can be total flexibility in how we communicate and build trust.

Quick self-assessment: When you pick up the phone to make a sales call, what are you hoping will be the outcome?

Let me guess:

* Get information

* Find the decision maker

* Schedule an appointment

* Make a sale

In other words, you want something even before the person you call says “Hello.”

It’s time to throw out your “selling” language and unlock your natural language.

Here’s how:

Be willing to challenge everything you have learned about selling up to this point. If you aren’t open to questioning conventional sales thinking, you’ll never have a chance to experience selling in a completely different way.

* Replace your goal-oriented agendas with trust-building agendas.

* Learn to enjoy the processing of building a new relationship.

* Build a dialogue.

* Avoid centering the conversation on you and your offerings.

* Enter the conversation without assumptions.

* Trade overconfidence for humility.

Any signs of overconfidence when you first make contact with a potential client will only set off “sales alarms.” Humility (not weakness) starts the trust-building process.

Visualize the person you are speaking with as a potential friend rather than a potential client. This will help you to converse rather than “sell.”

When you tap into your natural language abilities, it triggers the person you’re speaking with to tap into their own natural language as well.

Like you, they will abandon their “business language” and begin communicating with you in their most natural way.

Natural language is the crucial secret to transforming the outdated, ineffective “buyer-seller” role into a trust-based relationship based on open, natural communication.

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With a Masters Degree in Instructional Design and over a decade of experience creating breakthrough sales strategies for global companies such as UPS and QUALCOMM, Ari Galper discovered the missing link that people who sell have been seeking for years.

His profound discovery of shifting one’s mindset to a place of complete integrity, based on new words and phrases grounded in
sincerity, has earned him distinction as the world’s leading authority on how to build trust in the world of selling.

Leading companies such as Gateway, Clear Channel Communications, Brother International and Fidelity National Mortgage have called on Ari to keep them on the leading edge of sales performance. Visit http://www.unlockthegame.com to get his free sales training lessons.

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Aug

21

Earn Big Bucks in Sales Even Though You’re not a “Natural”

August 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Few highly successful people merely stumbled upon success. The great majority of successful people planned how their lives would develop.

One of the people who had the most influence on my professional life happens to be a millionaire many times over. This is not to say that the accumulation of wealth is the only measurement of success — it certainly is not. However, the report card for most men and women engaged in free enterprise usually include profitability or their personal income level among their success measurements.

This great man in my life set a goal early in life to earn a lot of money. He didn’t achieve his goal, however, strictly by writing down on paper the end result he wanted to achieve. He closely monitored his daily activities as well and set daily, weekly and monthly activity goals, i.e., “What must I do tomorrow or next week or next month to bring me closer to my goals?”

What’s amazing about this man is that he has had as much fun in life as anyone I know. So success doesn’t have to mean “all work and no play.”

What you do each day has a lot of influence on what you become. So, ask yourself, “Am I spending my time doing the things that lead to the goals I have set out to accomplish?”

On May 29, 1953, the great mountain climber, Sir Edmund Hilary became the first man to climb Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.

What do you think led to this incredible accomplishment? Do you imagine that Sir Edmond was just out walking around one day and said to himself, “Well, while I’m out here, I might as well climb Mount Everest.” I don’t think so. I believe he gave this goal a great deal of thought and planned meticulously every step in the process.

Another key I’ve found to success is who you hang out with.

If you are an ambitious salesperson, for example, and you hang out with salespeople who are barely making ends meet, have developed bad work habits and spend more time planning their next hunting or fishing trip than they do planning their sales strategy, you’re running a big risk that their habits and their attitudes will rub off on you. You’re not likely to learn a lot about success from people like thisat least not about business success.

Some high-performing salespeople are “naturals.” They don’t seem to ever study or practice. They appear to always know precisely what to say to smooth the ruffled feathers of an irate customer. They approach prospects with confidence and seem to be forever walking away from even cold prospect calls with an order.

But if you are just average or perhaps below average on your sales team, you may not be a natural. This is not a show stopper. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be just as successful as the so-called “naturals.” But what it does mean is that you have to work harder than the handful of salespeople out there who appear to effortlessly achieve six figure commissions.

No matter where you do business, it’s not easy to be successful. The good news is that anyone can achieve success; that is, if they commit to realistic goals and work on their game.

What has meant more to me personally than just about anything else in my career is consistently listening to educational material on selling techniques, good management practices, negotiating skills, time management, etc. When I first started out in business, I practically memorized the success principles of America’s greatest business leaders. If you listen to enough positive material and real enough positive books, some of it is bound to rub off. Looking back on my career, I only wish I had read more and listened more.

It’s called “spaced repetition” — listening to the same success principles over and over to the point that making the right move or coming up with an effective response becomes almost second nature.
Take charge of your own career. How successful you are is entirely up to you.

Bill Lee is author of Gross Margin: 26 Factors Affecting Your Bottom Line ($29.95) and 30 Ways Managers Shoot Themselves in the Foot ($21.95) Plus $6 S&H for the first book and $1 S&H for each additional book. To order, see Shopping Cart at http://www.BillLeeOnLine.com

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Aug

8

The Natural Born Salesperson Is A Myth

August 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment

There is no such thing as the natural born salesperson, any more than there is a natural born pilot, athlete or physician. There has been a myth circling for years that people who are successful at selling have some natural skills, attitudes or personalities.

I have been teaching people to sell for over thirty years, and it is my opinion that selling, just like any other discipline or profession, requires: learned skills, abilities, traits and attitudes. These are learned. Show me an athlete who has “natural” ability, and I will show you an athlete who will tend to not practice as hard as someone who has to develop these skills and abilities.

What are these so-called natural skills and attitudes that people believe contribute to this innate ability to sell successfully?

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