Sell or Be Sold(31)

The salesperson must assume responsibility for himself, the prospect, and all that occurs.

One time a buyer in a retail furniture store said to me, “I’m not buying anything today.” With a smile I replied, “Sir, if you don’t buy anything today it’ll be my fault, not yours.” He looked at me with a grin and said, “Great. Let me tell you what I’m looking for.” The customer did buy from me that day and we furnished his entire house. All I did was take full responsibility for the selling and the buying. Also, I understood that his statement that he wasn’t buying was just a reactive response from his mind and not really him. The only thing the buyer should ever have to do is give you the money.

The buyer who says, “I’m not buying today,” is indicating his lack of trust of either salespeople or his ability to make good decisions. It’s vital that you understand why the buyer is wary of salespeople and why he distrusts his own ability to make decisions. These points must be understood and handled.

When someone meets you and you sense his or her distrust, know that it doesn’t have anything to do with you personally. You haven’t even said anything yet! Perhaps the blue shirt you’re wearing reminded him of some bad experience he had. I don’t know, but I do know that if you don’t handle it, you will not sell him!





CREDIBILITY = INCREASED SALES


A lack of trust will cost you sales! Distrust will cost you credibility, and lost credibility will add time and reduce your chances of making the sale.

Credibility is one of the most valuable assets you have as a salesperson. When something happens that calls your credibility into question, it becomes difficult to get the buyer to trust his decision to do business with you. If an element of distrust exists, no matter what you say or how you beg, plead, or persuade, realize that you’ve got your hands full and you must handle the distrust first in order to get the job done. You must rebuild your credibility immediately. Ignoring the credibility issue won’t make it disappear. It has to be handled! When the buyer doesn’t trust, you can use all of the greatest closing lines throughout history and watch them fall upon deaf ears.

Great salespeople understand the buyer’s distrust, accept full responsibility for it, and never take it personally.

I always assume that the buyer doesn’t trust a single word I say to him. He might not even believe that my name is what I say it is, which is why I create something that buyers know they can trust because they can see it. When I’m talking about the product, I provide everything I say in writing or support it with printed materials. If I’m telling a buyer that the piece of property is 44,000 square feet, I’ll show him the documentation that supports my statement, and this will start to show the prospect that I’m trustworthy—that I know what I am doing. Then he’ll lend credibility to what I say in the future!





PEOPLE BELIEVE WHAT THEY SEE, NOT WHAT THEY HEAR


Have you ever noticed that a buyer isn’t fully listening to you? This phenomenon occurs because the buyer assumes that he can’t trust what a salesperson says.

People believe what they see, not what they hear. Always have your presentation, proposals, and prices in writing for your buyers so they can see it with their own eyes.

Your prospects will not believe the words they hear, but they will believe the words they can see. Tell a guy some unbelievable and bizarre conspiracy theory that you heard about and then show him the article where you read it. If it’s in writing, it becomes more real to him.

I had a very wealthy friend and I wanted to get him to invest with me on a real estate deal. I didn’t tell him a single thing about the property, the deal, or the investment. I didn’t waste one second telling him how good the investment was, since he had been told this a thousand times. I called him and asked him to meet me at the property because I wanted to get his opinion on how I could expand my company and wanted him to see what I was doing so he could give me the best advice. I showed him the properties, the tenants, the competition, the possibilities. Within thirty minutes of touring just one of the projects, he was asking if he could invest in the project!

I want you to make this a rule that you sell by: Assume that your buyer, no matter how well you know the person, never believes your words and will only believe that which you are able to show him.

As I stated earlier, there are many reasons for distrust, and it’s necessary that you know what they are. The most common and least considered is the buyer’s own experience with fabrications, exaggerations, and embellishments. You’ve got to assume that at some point in his life, he committed such an offense himself. It might be something major or it might be something minor, like the time he lied to his parents about not feeling good so he didn’t have to go to school. Whatever it was, the buyer knows that another person is capable of slight exaggerations or even outright lies because he’s done so himself. The buyer believes that if he’s done this, you’ll do it too, even if you won’t! Regardless of how honest you are and how much integrity you might have, your prospect believes that you’re capable of the same things he has been guilty of. This belief and distrust is what is real to that person, regardless of how much you try to convince him otherwise.