Sell or Be Sold(52)
Examples of Greetings
“Welcome. Thank you for coming here. What can I get you information on?” (Then transition into the remaining four steps.)
“Hello. Thanks for taking the time to see me today. Tell me, what homework have you done thus far so I don’t duplicate your efforts?”
“Great to see you today, and thanks for your time. What information can I provide you with to make the best use of your time?”
Each of these greetings gets to what people want to do. We save rapport building and buddy making for later in the process when and if the buyer elects to do so. (Call our office to get more information on customized greetings for you and your organization.) After each greeting, I immediately transition to step 2.
STEP TWO: DETERMINE WANTS AND NEEDS
Determine wants and needs and why. You can either do this by moving into fact finding or into a consultation stage. The fastest way to do this is to fact find on previous like purchases. The purpose of this step is twofold: (1) To know what product to show your client and (2) to know how to present the product in a manner that will build value in that presentation and cause the person to want to act.
Even things of equal value are not identical when the motivation for that thing changes. A glass of water is a glass of water, and on the surface would appear to be the same until you discover reason or motivation someone might want for the glass of water. Different reasons promote different values and urgencies, and those must be determined in step 2.
A glass of water just to finish the dinner table out has a different connotation than a glass of water that would be used to wash poison out of someone’s eye or one to be used to satisfy the thirst of someone who is dehydrated. Furthermore, a glass of water from the local water system holds different value than bottled water or an alkaline water that is used to reduce the acidity of someone’s body chemistry.
At Thanksgiving, the glass and aesthetic value of the presentation is more valuable than the water itself until one of the guests is choking on Grandma’s cornbread dressing; then the same water increases in value and the glass diminishes in value. Get it? Why do you want this? Why do you have interest now? What is your current situation? What problem are you trying to solve? What is important to you in your next purchase? Why? What similar experiences have you had? What does your current situation do for you that you like? What does it not do for you? How would you rate your current service on a scale from one to ten? What would make it a ten? Would you do that again? Was it worth the money you paid? What value would you place on it? What would have made it better?
When determining wants and needs, you are not selling; you are asking and listening. Because this is done in the early stages of the sales process, understand that you will be using this information to make sense of and close on your proposal.
Remember, all purchases or investments are trying to solve a problem of some sort. All of them. You don’t buy a drill because you want a drill. You buy a drill because you want a hole.
STEP THREE: SELECT PRODUCT AND PRESENT/BUILD VALUE
Select the product and present it. Select for your clients rather than allowing them to wander through your inventory and select for themselves. Whether your product is tangible or not does not matter; you have an inventory. If you’re selling insurance, based on what you found out in the first two steps, you would now be able to select and present a solution and how it will benefit the client. The same holds true with any other presentation, whether it be surgery, a piece of art, a car, furniture, a membership at the country club, or a gift for a charity event—or a simple glass of water.
You should present your product based on what your client told you was important. There is no reason to show the quality of the crystal or quality of the water to a choking man. If I buy a home from you, please show me what I want to see rather than what is in my budget. And when you show me a home, if you have done step 2 right, let me see the property before you show me the house. When I buy property, I am more interested in the grounds than I am in the house itself. But if you don’t take the time to find out in step 2 what is important, you will waste time in your presentation showing me things that just don’t matter.
On my show, Turnaround King, you saw me go to a gym where they presented their products to me without knowing what was of value to me. Had the owner of the company taken the time to collect the right information and then presented his product specifically to me, he would have been more effective. Once he found out that the wet part of the facility was most important to me, not the weights and socializing, then he could have spent his time targeting his demonstration to those things that most hit my hot buttons. The fact that I love to swim and believe that swimming in an Olympic pool would trim me out faster than any other workout, without causing damage to my body, would have allowed the presenter to target and confine his presentation to those things that would have created urgency and the most value, and it would have improved his chances of making a new member.