Great salespeople are not born, they are made. They’ve learned a set of skills that allow them to connect quickly with their customers, and to present their product in an extremely appealing way. These skills have largely been learned, and can therefore be taught. If you observe the behaviour of superb performers who consistently go beyond their sales target easily, you’ll discover they have skills that distinguish them from mediocre salespeople.
SKILL NO. 1: STORING PREFERENCES
Top sales people not only know their product, they also know how their product, they also know their customers sift and sort the information they are given. This is crucial because customers are constantly asessing weather they dislike what they’re hearing (their prejudice). Customers will move towards what they like, and move away from what they don’t.
In this latter situation, the sale will not be made. Each of us has our own personal space where we store our preferences and prejudices. This space sorrounds us, generally within an arm’s length. And within the space lies a gold-mine of information. Have you noticed how people look to the same area within their personal space when thinking about similar types of information? A customer talking about what he wants will look in a particular direction; an area within his personal space.
When the customer shifts to talk about what he doesn’t want, he will look in a different direction. For instance, form of mental picture of something you’ve bought that you like. Now a picture of something you’ve bought that you don’t like. Compare the “locations” of these two pictures. While you can shift the position of these two picture, there will be a location that seems more natural to you.
Essentialy, we have a location for things that we like, and a different one for the things that we don’t. this difference in location within our personal space makes a substantial difference when confronted with a salesperson pushing a product.
RIGHT IS RIGHT?
Most people mentally place the item they like on their right. This is where they “store” their preferences. Prejudices, or things they don’t like are usually stored on the opposite side, their left. You will hear people talking about “getting on the wrong side of someone” or “off on the wrong foot”. It is highly likely that they mean this literally. You’ll notice that the salesperson who struggles to make the sale would have approached the customer from the wrong side, most likely her left, or had placed the product on that side.
The customer therefore had to look at the product, and the person selling it, through the area in which she stores her prejudices. This makes it difficult for her to like the product or the salesperson. Most of us have at one time or another decided not to buy a product we liked, because we were turned off by the salesperson. In that situation, the product was presented in the area of our likes. While the salesperson stood in the area of our dislikes. (continued)
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