Knowing that buyers have different agendas to sales people is half the battle. Like any relationship, once you know how the other person likes to make decisions, and you react appropriately, then that relationship becomes stronger. To be a successful in sales or business, you must create strong relationships. This article, brings you one step closer to understanding yourself and your customer or prospect.
First; how do you know when you got it right
You may have heard of the phrase – “what pushed your buttons”. In other words, what sorts of things motivate you or make you happy? Given we do most things in life because we want to, and moan about the things we hate, it is important to understand yourself in this context.
What this is actually telling you about yourself is whether or not your own opinion matters most to you, or other people’s opinions.
I want you to answer the following question truthfully – without peeking at the explanation.
How do you know when you have done a good job?
How you answer this question, will tell you a lot about yourself. In particular, you will understand whose opinion is important to you.
Some of you may use phrases such as;
- “Well I just know”
- “It feels good, when the work is finished to a high standard”
- ”I always do a good job”
For others you may have responded;
- “Well I am in sales, and the commission check is all the proof I need”
- “When I get public recognition”
- “When people come up and tell me”
- “When I get a good grade in my appraisal”
What this is actually telling you about yourself is whether or not your own opinion matters most to you, or other people’s opinions.
So what could go wrong if you said the wrong thing?
Let’s assume you meet someone who has a very strong internal representation, and you on the other hand need other people’s approval, before you will make decisions.
You are trying to sell personal coaching to when you looks at things externally and they look at things internally, and you say. “if you do this course, your friends will be amazed at the transformation that has taken place”. The probability is that they will look at you blankly, and maybe even offer a response such as; “If I took the course, and it is a big IF, then what would my friends have to do with it?” You are then going to have to start playing catch-up!
On the other hand if you said something like; “Only you know how you would benefit from this course, and of course, the results that you mentioned you wanted would enable you to achieve your dreams.” Then you would have a better chance of getting through to them
What questions to ask, to unlock their buying code?
Without knowing a person’s strategy, you could be emphasising all the wrong points. It is therefore vital to ask the person some questions, so as to elicit their strategy, so that you can emphasise points that match their way of thinking.
So how do you determine a person’s frame of representation? As you will have gathered by now, it is by asking the correct questions. What worked for your friends, may not working in a business situation.
If I was trying to find out a potential buyer of my value proposition workshop’s way of thinking I would ask the following question;
“If your company was to attend this workshop, how would you know if the day had been a success for you?”
I would listen carefully to the answer, because not only would I know their strategy, I would also get a good idea of what success measures they would be looking for, and I would ensure that these were achieved during the workshop, to produce another delighted customer.
Conclusion
Know they self! If you can’t determine how you make decisions, how could you determine other people’s methodologies for arriving at conclusions? Once you know how you get feedback, then you start checking out your friends. Doing this in relaxing surroundings, will help you become proficient, so you can start using these questioning techniques in business circumstances
Translating these insights into questions that you can then use to move buyers closer to your products can still seem a challenge to some people, maybe then you could do with some help.
This series of articles will explore the different psychological buying patterns or your customers, and help you to identify how they make decisions.
- Mars and Venus I – Introduction
- Mars and Venus II – “Moving towards” or “Moving away from”!
- Mars and Venus IV – What makes sense to buyers?
- Mars and Venus V – Buyers and Sellers Want to Close the Sale for Different Reasons
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