The Practice of Business

By Les D. Crause

The Practice of Business

Copyright © 2012 by Global Business Resources

All rights reserved

5663 Balboa Ave #416,

San Diego,

California 92111,

United States of America

1st Printing February 2012

Published by Global Business Resources International

E-mail Address: admin@gbr-i.com

Web Address: www.gbri-bookshop.com

All rights reserved under International Copyright Law.

Contents may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without the express written consent of the publisher.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Global Business and Ministries (GBM) version of the Bible.

Contents

Section 01 – Climbing the Stairs of Selling. 11

Chapter 01 – Five Main Stairs 11

Using the AIDA. 11

Three Main Parts 12

Part 1 - The Doorway. 12

Stair 1. Attention. 12

Be Original 13

Use Shock Tactics 14

Use Curiosity. 14

Get Their Attention. 15

Stair 2. Interest 16

Use Statements and Statistics 16

Ask Questions 16

Use Secrets 17

Chapter 02 - The Buildup. 21

Stair 3. Desire. 21

Use Pictures 21

Promote the Benefits 22

Find Their Core Desires 23

Become a Savior 24

The Real Reason They Want to Buy. 24

Wrong Thinking. 26

Stair 4. Conviction. 27

No Conviction Means No Sale. 27

Make Sure They Understand. 28

Ask Analyticals Questions 28

Give Expressives a Challenge. 29

Play Hard to Get 30

Chapter 03 – The Close. 32

Stair 5. Action. 32

Handle the Objections 32

Handling Competition. 32

Tire Kicking. 33

The Real Reason for Buying. 34

Handling Procrastination. 35

Give Deadlines 35

Give Bonuses and Guarantees 36

Ask for the Order 37

Keep the Door Open. 37

Seal the Deal 38

Section 02 - Temperamental Selling. 40

Chapter 04 – People Are Different 40

All Things to All Men. 41

Know Your Own Temperament 41

Two Parameters 42

The Emotive Parameter 42

The Assertive Parameter 44

Chapter 05 – Temperamental Selling Weaknesses 47

Weaknesses of the Driver 48

Weaknesses of the Analytical 48

Weaknesses of the Amiable. 49

Weaknesses of the Expressive. 50

Chapter 06 – Temperamental Selling Strengths 53

Strengths of the Driver 53

Strengths of the Analytical 53

Strengths of the Amiable. 54

Strengths of the Expressive. 55

Changing Your Temperament 56

Changing Your Emotions 56

Changing Your Assertion. 57

Practice Changing. 58

Chapter 07 – Relating to Other Temperaments 60

Relating to the Driver 60

Relating to the Analytical 61

Relating to the Amiable. 62

Relating to the Expressive. 62

Matching the Two Temperaments Together 63

Selling as a Driver 63

Selling as an Amiable. 65

Selling to Different Genders 65

Section 03 - Selling with Sex Appeal 68

Chapter 08 – Usually for Men Only. 68

Danger of Women’s Liberation. 68

Include Both Sexes 69

Tendency to Follow Masculinity. 69

Personal Pronouns in Speaking or Writing. 70

No Gender Favorites 70

Getting the Balance Right 70

Identify With Your Prospect 71

Selling to the Opposite Sex. 72

Gender Differences 73

Men are Left-Brained and Logical 73

Women are Right-Brained and Creative. 74

Women Examine in Detail 74

Men Look at the Broad Picture. 75

Chapter 09 – Sales Sex Appeal 78

Adam Originally Both Sexes 78

Relate to People as They Are. 78

The Confusion of Gay People. 79

Use Sex Appeal Not Sexuality. 80

Show Your Differences 80

Show Your Similarities 81

Selling Must Not Meet Your Needs 82

Treat Both Sexes Equally. 82

Section 04 - Influence and Persuasion in Selling. 85

Chapter 10 – Overcoming Fear 85

Start With Fear 86

Fear in the Scriptures 86

Fear a Strong Motivator 87

Identify Their Fears 88

Creating Fear 88

Kinds of Fears 89

Offer Them a Solution. 90

Satan’s Way Versus God’s Way. 90

Chapter 11 - Influencing the Whole Person. 93

It Starts With the Body. 93

The Desire for Nourishment 93

The Desire for Reproduction. 94

The Desire for Safety. 94

The Soul 95

The Intellect or the Mind. 95

Using Comparisons 95

The Emotions 96

The Will 97

Using Shortage. 97

The Spirit 98

Intuitive Knowledge. 98

Communion. 99

Use Famous People. 100

Wisdom.. 101

Section 05 - Making Sales Calls 104

Chapter 12 – Selling is Not Easy. 104

Introduction to Selling. 104

Pre-Employment Project 105

Training 101. 107

Three Doors 108

Finding Orphan Policy Holders 108

Don’t Forget Existing Customers 109

Call Resistance. 110

Believe in Your Product 110

Care About Your Customers 111

Selling With Faith, Hope and Love. 112

Overcoming My Fear 112

Internet Versus Live Sales 113

Sell the Interview First 114

Offer Something for Free. 114

Chapter 13 – Calculate Sales Ratios 117

Keep Accurate Records 117

Tracking Your Results 117

Using the Law of Averages 118

A Clever Idea. 118

Chapter 14 – How Different Temperaments Sell 121

The Expressive. 121

Analyticals 121

Amiables 122

Drivers 122

Work as a Sales Team.. 123

Chapter 15 – Introduction to Marketing. 125

Interruption or Permission Marketing. 125

Introduction Marketing. 125

Circle of Influence. 126

Referrals from Satisfied Customers 127

The Right Way to Ask for Leads 128

New Customers Best for Introductions 128

Remember Your Old Customers 129

Wrapping it Up. 129

Section 01 – Climbing the Stairs of Selling

Chapter 01

Stairs 1 and 2

Section 01 – Climbing the Stairs of Selling

Chapter 01 – Five Main Stairs

In my book Building the Boats of Business I looked at an introduction to some basic attitudes that are necessary in a salesperson. Now I am going to expand it into much more detail on The Practice of Business.

I want to start by looking at the actual selling process, which is kind of like climbing stairs. As you climb each stair it leads you automatically to the next one. If you want to succeed and make the sale you need to climb all the stairs.

Some people make a lot of effort to climb one or two of the stairs, but they can’t understand why they didn’t make a sale. It is because they didn’t climb all of the stairs.

So in this Section I am going to give you all five of the stairs that you will need to climb if you want to be successful in selling.

Using the AIDA

Anybody who knows something about selling knows that there is a simple formula that has been used through the years which still works. So I am going to start with that formula and use it as the basis.

It is known as the AIDA, and each letter stands for a specific part of the selling process.

AIDA stands for:

•         Attention

•         Interest

•         Desire

•         Action

I am going to divide the action part into two steps, so that is why I have five steps instead of four.

I would like to give you the way I believe the AIDA should be presented, and show you the way I use it. I believe that if you will take the principles that I am going to teach you here, you should be able to succeed in selling anything to anyone.

Three Main Parts

I have divided these stairs into three main sections. I have called the first one The Doorway. I have called the second one The Build Up, and the third one The Close. It is kind of like an outline for a teaching or a sermon if you are a preacher. You have your Introduction, your Main Part and your Conclusion.

Selling is really just like a little lecture or a little sermon that you give. And the process of preaching and bringing people to the Lord is the exact selling process. It works the same.

Actually with anything in life where we persuade somebody to our way of thinking and convince them to do or to give us what we want, it always follows the same process.

Part 1 - The Doorway

So with that in mind let’s look then at the five stairs of selling. And the first thing you need to do is go through the doorway.

Stair 1. Attention

The very first stair, the A in Aida, is for Attention.

Before you can even begin the selling process you need to find somebody to sell to. This is another whole teaching on its own and I will look at the realm of marketing and prospecting separately.

So let’s assume you have found a person who is a possible prospect or customer; somebody who you might be able to sell your product to. The first thing you have to do is to get the person’s attention. This is very difficult these days because everybody is calling for that person’s attention.

Everywhere we go we are being bombarded by media. If you are on the Internet and have an email address as most people do these days, every day in your email box you are being bombarded by spam. Every person out there is trying to sell you their product and persuade you to their way of thinking.

How do you get a person’s attention right in the middle of all that?

It is kind of like being in a room where everybody is speaking at the same time, and you hear this hubbub and noise of speaking. If you walk into a room like that, you don’t clearly hear any specific person speaking, unless you go up to them and choose to listen to that person.

Unless somebody gets your attention, you probably won’t hear what anybody says. Just go into a crowded public place, into a shop or anywhere where people are milling around, talking and making a noise and I guarantee you actually don’t listen to anything.

The exception is if you are sitting in a restaurant and have some loud person sitting next to you who has been drinking too much. Then they don’t give you any choice. They impose their conversation on you, and you cannot help but hear it even though you are trying to tune it out.

A lot of people market that way. They bombard and force their marketing on you and you are trying to tune it out. You try to find a way out of there as quickly as you can because you can’t stand it!

Something needs to get your attention so that you can make a choice to listen. I would like to give you a few suggestions of things that you can use to get the attention of a prospect.

Be Original

The first thing you need is originality. You need to present the person something that they are not familiar with. If you present something that they have heard before, that they know or that they are expecting you to do, they already have a preprogrammed way of getting out of it and brushing it off.

They will say, “Oh I’ve heard that before. It’s another one of those. No thanks.”

When people try to sell us, our first impression or response is usually, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Somebody gets you on the phone and says, “Hello my name is so-and-so and I’m from an insurance company.”

“No thanks I have insurance.”

Standard approaches don’t work. You need to be original and present something totally unfamiliar to the person.

This is not very easy, because people have already thought through most new ideas. So you will have to be creative. You will have to come up with a creative alternative; a different approach.

People in the advertising media are coming up with new things all the time. All the time there are new approaches in advertisements and some way of getting you to stop and say, “That sounds interesting. Let’s have a look.”

Use Shock Tactics

Now if you can’t be original, the next possible method you can use is to present the unexpected and shock them.

Preachers have to do the same thing every Sunday when they stand up to preach. The people come to church and sit through the long sermon, get bored with it and try to keep awake. And they are there out of obligation because it is the right thing to do.

If you want to get people to listen to your message you may have to sometimes shock them. Say something outrageous or unexpected; something that they didn’t think a preacher would say.

You will need to do the same thing in your selling.  You will have to take a shock approach at times to get people to sit up and pay attention to what you have to say.

So don’t think that you just go out there and say, “Hi, my name is Les D. Crause and I have this wonderful product that I would like to tell you about.”

Their first programmed response is, “No thanks I’m busy. I don’t have any money. I have no time. Thanks, but no thanks.”

You have to get their attention.

Use Curiosity

Probably the most powerful way of all to get anybody’s attention is to use curiosity. Make them want to know more about what you are saying by presenting a question or a statement that gets their minds going; something that they want to know more about just out of pure curiosity because they have never ever heard this before.

So that is great, you have come original. Perhaps they are shocked that you would say that. And now they are even more curious. But you want to move in on that curiosity and you want them to effectively say, “Oh that sounds interesting. Tell me more.”

You have to get their attention! How are you going to do this? This is going to depend on your product. It is going to depend on how you are selling, whether you are selling to the person face to face, whether you are going out knocking on doors, whether you are doing telephone canvassing, whether you are sending emails on the internet, whether you are creating marketing videos.

You may use many different methods of marketing, and we will look at that in more detail when we look at the marketing side.

Get Their Attention

But the most important thing of all before you come with your sales pitch is do not even start until you know that the person is paying attention. Otherwise you are going to go there and give your whole sales pitch.

And you know some people are very aggressive and assertive. They won’t let you say two words and they will stop you right there and say, “No thanks!”

Other people are a little bit more polite and they will wait until you have gone through your whole little sales pitch, your wonderful little thing that you built up and as soon as you take a breath they will say, “No thanks, I’m not interested.”

Well you just wasted five minutes of real emotional energy there and it deflates you.

You say, “I gave them my best!”

Don’t even begin until you have their attention. Make sure that there is a very clear sign from the person that they are interested.

Well you don’t even have their interest yet because that is the next one – interest - but at least you have their attention. They are ready to listen.

How long are they ready to listen? Probably at the most about 30 seconds, sometimes even less. That is why most advertisements these days are so fast that they barely last 30 seconds.

A 30 second advertisement these days is a very long advertisement. Some of them are five, ten seconds each just to get the point across very quickly while you have the person’s attention.

Stair 2. Interest

Now you have to zero in to the next stair, which is interest.

You may have their attention; you may have shocked them or said something that they haven’t heard before and so they are curious to know a little bit more. But it doesn’t take long for that attention span to disappear unless you can take them up the next stair, the stair of interest.

They have to be interested in what you have to say, otherwise they won’t let you get past the first sentence. So once you have the attention you have to say or do something that will arouse more interest in them.

Use Statements and Statistics

Now you can do that in different ways. You can start by making some statements of fact, statistics. Statistics are very curious and interesting things.

You say, “Did you know that scientists have proved that on average, every single person does…?”

Do you want to know more? Are you ready for more? You are interested already.

“Every single person especially women over thirty…”

Do you want to know more? You see I have your interest. You want to know more. I have given you statistics.

And you know very few people will actually say to you, “Where did you get those statistics? I want proof that they are true.”

No, they are so interested in what you have to say because they have never heard anything like this before.

Statistics are a very powerful way of arousing interest in a person. So make yourself a list of statistics, of facts, of little known facts and secrets. Secrets is the third one. I have jumped the gun here.

Ask Questions

So you start with statements and statistics. And then the second way of getting interest is to ask questions.

You say, “Did you know that most men under the age of forty by the time they reach their fortieth birthday find...”

“Find what?”

“No I didn’t know that.”

Do you know? Have you heard? You ask anything that is a question, except one that has a yes or no answer.

“Did you know?”

“Yes I did.”

“Did you know?”

“No I don’t.”

The question must be a question that arouses interest and curiosity. Not a simple question, “How would you like to know how to make more money?”

“No thanks I don’t.”

It takes a little bit more than that. You have to expand your question into a thought provoking thing that gets the person thinking. “Well you know I have never really thought about that subject much.”

“What is it that makes some people get wealthy no matter what they do? And other people no matter how hard they work, they just cannot ever seem to accumulate wealth? The money just goes out faster than it comes in.”

“What is it that makes some people rise up in success?”

You see now that arouses interest.

“Do you know the one most important principle of all that every business owner should apply if he hopes to succeed in his business?”

“What are the three things that you should never ever do to your customer?”

You want to know the answers to these don’t you? It has aroused your interest and your curiosity.

Use questions wisely and it begins to arouse an interest in the person.

Use Secrets

And then the third one which I mentioned already is secrets.

You say, “We would like to reveal to you a little known secret about how any single woman can find the man of her dreams and choose who she wants, because there will be so many prospects that she will be overwhelmed with offers.”

Do you want to know this secret? If you are single I guess you do.

“What is the secret to accumulating wealth without working eighteen hours a day?”

Secrets are things that everybody hopes exists. And they must be there because some people seem to have found them.

Some people just get wealthy all the time. Some people just get what they want in life. Some people don’t have a problem losing weight. Some people look beautiful all the time. What is their secret?

You see if we could just find that secret and grab hold of it, the knowledge of that secret will allow me to become just like that person, to achieve the same results, to be successful and wealthy. To be whatever it is. Secrets are very interesting things.

And I don’t care who you are, the moment you hear that word ‘secret’, it arouses your interest.

Someone says to you, “Don’t tell anybody but I have this little secret.”

You say, “I don’t want to hear your secrets. It is none of my business.”

I have never heard that!

“You have a secret? Oh well perhaps it is not that important, but actually I am curious. What is it?”

It is human nature. We want to know the thing that has been withheld from us, the thing that the select few in the world know. It has been withheld for this little elite group of people. They are the only ones who know this secret.

“And now we are making this secret available especially to you my very special prospect. This is not available to the whole world. We are not publicizing this to everybody but I am giving you right now, the opportunity to learn a secret that has been carried in my family for generations.”

I want to know more. I am interested. Now I am listening.

Does the person think, “He is going to try and sell me something for sure.”?

He probably knows it, but he is so curious it doesn’t matter.

He says, “We will handle that when he gets to it. I am so interested in what he has to say. You know I have no interest in buying from him. I don’t have any money, but I really would like to know more.”

You have to draw the person in. If you cannot get the person’s attention, if you cannot arouse an interest in them, you have not even entered the doorway yet. This is the doorway to the sale. And once you have your foot in the door, you will not be kicked out very easily.

But if you haven’t got your foot in the door yet, it is going to take one slam in your face and you are gone. If you miss your sales presentation up until this point, you have no sales presentation. You have no chance whatsoever of making a sale.

Chapter 02

The Buildup

Chapter 02 - The Buildup

Once you are through that door then begins the buildup. And this is where you finally begin to put in your sales pitch.

Stair 3. Desire

Well what do we do for the actual sales pitch?

Firstly, do not give a whole lot of technical complicated information. Don’t give a whole load of empty words that are boring.

Use Pictures

There is only one thing that every single person responds to without even trying and that is pictures or images. If you are not painting pictures, you are not presenting anything except a load of empty words.

And you know what, we are sick of empty words. We grew up as children hearing our mom or dad nagging all the time and saying, “Don’t do this! Don’t do that!” Words, words, we ignore words.

You sat bored in school while the teacher rambled on and on. You sit bored in church while the preacher rambles on and on and on. I don’t want words I want pictures.

You say, “Well I would like to tell you about our brilliant new gadget! It has this feature and that feature and it does this and it does that. And it slices and dices and chops and does everything.”

No, give me a picture.

“I want you to see yourself lying on the beach in Hawaii, with the sun beating down. You have just put on this suntan lotion and there is a beautiful cool breeze blowing. And just in front of you there on the beach is the most beautiful woman in a bikini that you have ever seen.”

That is a picture. If you can’t paint pictures you might as well go back out the door again.

Pictures will catch a person’s attention, stop, and make them think. And as those pictures build up, and we have taught this. How do you create emotion? How do you change a person’s feelings?  You do it by filling their mind with images. It creates imagination and imagination is your most powerful tool in selling.

If you cannot create imaginations and pictures in the person’s mind; if you cannot create a scenario in which the person sees themselves as a result of what you are selling them, they are going to listen for the next five or ten seconds and say, “Well you know that all sounds very interesting. But really I am busy and I am late for an appointment. Thanks for your time, but ah, not interested.”

Paint the pictures. What kind of pictures? Do not paint a picture of how wonderful your product is.

“Well you know we have this sauna and it has so many jets and it hardly uses any electricity. Water consumption is low. It has a ten horsepower motor.”

Who cares! What is the benefit in the person getting your product?

Promote the Benefits

How do you move from features to benefits?

Here is how you do it. Start by making a list of all the features. Sit and write it down. Take your product whatever it is. It can be an information product, it can be a tangible product, it can be a service that you are offering. Sit and write down everything that you know about your product.

If you don’t know your product, you don’t have a sales pitch. If all you are going there to do is try and make some money for yourself you do not have a sales pitch. If you do not know your product, if you do not believe in your product, you cannot sell. So get to know your product really well.

Make yourself a whole long list of everything you know about your product, every feature. And then as you take each feature of the product, hold it up and ask yourself this question. “So what?”

“Our product costs less than anybody else’s.”

So what?

“Our product has this kind of facility or ability.”

So what?

“This lesson, this lecture, this information product that we are giving teaches you how to lose weight.”

How? So what? Tell me more.

You need more than just the features of the product. You need to convert into something that is more meaningful to the person.

You need to take it and make it into a picture, a benefit that the person can say, “Okay I have a reason now to buy this product, because if I buy this product, this is what it will do for me. This is what effect it will have on my life. This is how it will change me. This is how it will help me to fulfill my desires.”

Find Their Core Desires

Now perhaps before you even go any further you should start finding out some of the core desires that the person has. Start asking them some of their core desires.

Don’t ask a person, “Well tell me, what are your core desires?”

Come on, if I were to ask you that question now, what would you answer?

“Tell me, what is your consuming passion in life?”

Well you may have some consuming passions but you know, you probably weren’t thinking of my product in satisfying them.

So bear in mind firstly what your product can accomplish for a person and start to question them in some of these areas. If you are selling life insurance or an investment product, find out.

Ask them, “Tell me what plans do you have for your son as he grows up? What would you like to see him accomplish in life? Have you thought about how you will educate him? Which college he will go to, what kind of work he will do?

What plans, what desires do you have for your family, for your life? What would you really like to do to make your wife the happiest woman in the world?

What would you like to do to make your husband dote over you so that he will give you whatever you want?”

Get the person thinking and talking. Again use questions, get them thinking. Find out what burns inside of a person. And then try and take your product and match the features of your product to some of that person’s core desires.

Become a Savior

Do you know when we present the Gospel we have to bring a person to the place where they realize they are sinners and they cannot attain salvation or attain the righteousness that God requires from us, and then we offer them a Savior.

You must do the same when you sell your product. You must find a person’s needs and core desires and things that are burning in them and then you must become a Savior.

Your product must become their Savior. Your product is the thing that is going to save them from what they fear. Your product is going to save them from not fulfilling their desires in life.

Now when you present it that way a person is ready to listen. Not only are they ready to listen but their desire is beginning to grow. And without desire, you are not going to make a sale. I will tell you why, because every single one of us we buy something for only one reason.

And there is only one way in the world that you can get anybody to do anything and that is if they want to do it. And there is only one way in the world that you can ever get anybody to buy your product and that is they must want it.

If they don’t want what you are offering you can come with every argument under the sun. If you cannot create within them a desire to hold in their hands, to be in possession of, or to have the availability of your service or what it is you are offering; if you cannot create that desire in them then you cannot come to the place where you say, “Would you like one?”

“Well not really.”

You must create the desire.

Now you have their attention, you have aroused a bit of interest in them and now you are doing your build up. You are finding their desires, you are creating new desires, you are painting pictures, you are stirring emotion.

How are you going to do this?

The Real Reason They Want to Buy

Firstly, don’t be analytical.

“Well I have all these statistics and facts.”

Those are the features of your product. People do not buy features. I don’t care how impressive it is.

“Well you know this car goes from naught to a hundred in so many seconds. It has so many horsepower engine. It has awesome gas consumption. The tires last for ages.”

Those are all wonderful features and you can go through the whole analytical thing.

And the young guy says, “But will the women like it?”

You see that is all that matters to him.

“I want a car that is going to impress all the dollies. When I ride into town I want all the beautiful women out there to think, ‘I want to go with him.’ ”

See now that is a core desire and if you avoid that core desire, I don’t care how many horsepower you have under the bonnet of the engine, I don’t care about any of the features. What does it mean to you?

Well if you are a speed demon and you love going at reckless speeds and living dangerously then perhaps the speed thing may mean something. Find out if that is what the person wants.

“Well the reason I am buying a car is I want something solid and sturdy and reliable and it doesn’t keep breaking down on me all the time.”

Okay what feature do you have in your car that will meet that person’s desires?

“I want a car that is not going to be too expensive. You know the cost of gasoline these days, it is difficult to own a car and run it and the car uses oil and all of these things. I just can’t afford to have a car like that.”

“I have just the car for you. This car has got the best gas mileage out of any other model that is available out there right now. And we have a special additive that you can put in that will even increase your consumption even more.”

You see now the person is listening because that was their desire.

You know you can often sell something by the features.

“Our car has the latest up to date car stereo. It plays DVD’s, CD’s, it has got a built in screen with a television.”

Some people will buy a car just for that.

“That is so awesome. The kids can watch movies while we go on the long trips. We can listen to all our lectures and tapes and good stuff. And I can even watch DVD’s in my car while I am driving. Isn’t that an awesome car?”

Who cares about the gas mileage and how many horsepower it has? You must find the feature that matches the desire of the person and when you do that they will buy.

It is a known fact in real estate that if you want to really make people feel comfortable in a home you have some onions frying or something on a stove when they walk in. And they smell the smell of food and they feel at home.

“It feels so nice in this home. I just love being here. Don’t you feel good in this place? Oh it feels so good!”

You know it costs so little to fry a few onions. These are all things that help stir up desire in the person. And there are so many different things you can do.

You must look at your product, you must look at the market that you are working in and have a look at what people desire in life. Match the features of your product to the desires of the person and they are wanting what you have.

You don’t have a sale yet though. This is only step number three.

Wrong Thinking

Now people make this mistake in thinking, “If I can really impress people, if I can get their attention with an outrageous advertisement, something that really shocks them, something that really gets their attention and makes them sit up and notice, that is going to increase our sales.”

No it won’t. It is only the first step.

“If I can stir up people’s curiosity about our product that they want to know more they will rush in and buy it.”

No they won’t, that is only the second step.

“If I can really make people want what we have it will sell itself.”

No it won’t. That is only the third step. You need to follow all five steps before you will get a sale.  And the last two steps are the most difficult ones of all.

They are the ones that very few salespeople know how to use. And that is why they go out and tell their story to prospect after prospect after prospect and come home and they have seen ten people and they are lucky if they sold one, because they don’t know how to bring the sale to an end.

Stair 4. Conviction

The fourth stair I have called conviction. Conviction is a word that is a bit confusing because we think of a person being convicted of a crime and they are feeling guilty.

This is not necessarily true. When a person is convicted of a crime, what it means is that it has been proved without any doubt that they did commit the crime.

You see conviction means to come to a place where you know without a doubt that something is true. Even if it is not true, it doesn’t matter, the point is you believe it is true.

When you are convicted of something, you will actually regulate your life on that conviction.

“Well you know, I don’t think that it is very good to drink coffee.”

Well perhaps it isn’t but people do it all the time, dozens of cups every day.

“But it is bad for you.”

Yeah it probably is. You know breathing is bad for you if the air is bad. Drinking water can be bad for you if it is contaminated. I mean eating food can be bad for you. You know what? Kissing can be bad. There are so many things that can be bad. It doesn’t matter it is all relative.

No Conviction Means No Sale

But when a person comes to a conviction where they are fully convinced, it changes their actions and they are ready to actually do something or not do something.

Now it is one thing to have the person desire your product, but until you can convince them  that they should buy this product; until they have come to a place of conviction where they not only want it but they are thinking, I have to have it, I have to have it, I must have it.

There is just no doubt about it anymore. I mean I would be foolish not to buy this.

They say, “I have to get it, and I have to get it as soon as possible!”

You have to bring the person to that conviction otherwise you cannot close the sale. How do we do that?

Make Sure They Understand

Firstly, make sure that they understood your presentation. Make sure that they didn’t misunderstand you. Make sure that they didn’t think that you said one thing when you actually meant something else.

If you don’t, by the time you make a sale and they suddenly find out that you lied to them, you withheld some information, you never gave them the facts, you confused them, you misinterpreted, you exaggerated, make sure that the person fully understands what you told them.

Ask Analyticals Questions

How do you find that out?

Well you could ask them. “Does that make sense? Do you understand what I have said? Is there anything you don’t understand?”

Then allow them to ask you questions.

“Is there anything you would like to know that I didn’t tell you? Do you have anything you would like to ask me about this product?”

Allow them to ask questions. Don’t be afraid.

Don’t think, “I have to get in there. I have to make them decide right now, quickly, before they ask me a question like, “So what kind of guarantee do you have on this?”

“Well actually we don’t really have any guarantee but it doesn’t matter.”

Allow them to ask you questions because as they ask questions they are actually saying to you, “I like this. I desire it. I am seriously thinking of getting it, and all I need you to do is just to answer a few questions for me and help me now to bring my emotions in gear and use my mind to justify buying this thing.”

You see we do that especially if we are analytical.

Our emotions say, “Let’s get it” but our mind says, “Now let’s think this through boy. Can we afford it? Can we do without it? Do we really need it? What will my wife say if I bought one?”

People will have questions. Allow them to ask questions and be ready. And again it gets back to knowing your product inside out. Be ready to answer their questions.

Give Expressives a Challenge

So that is how you handle an analytical. If you are dealing with an expressive, once you have them excited you must throw a challenge to them.

“Well I suppose you can’t really afford one of these, but...”

“What do you mean I can’t afford it?”

“Well I know our product is pretty pricey and I suppose if it is outside of your budget I will have to offer it to somebody who is perhaps a little bit better off financially.”

“What makes you think I am poor? What makes you think I don’t have money?”

You see expressives thrive on that. But every person, you need to give them a kind of a challenge to test to see how strong that desire really is.

See now if you have ever done any fishing you will know that when you finally get the fish on the line you don’t just yank him out of the water.  Because you will pull the line, you will pull the hook right out of his mouth. Or, you will snap your line and you lost him.

So you play the fish a little bit. You test to see whether he really bit the hook and the bait correctly, whether you really got him hooked before you start reeling him in. So sometimes you need to throw a little bit of a challenge there. Test the person. See if this desire really is strong.

Now how do you do that? It is going to vary according to your product. You must use a bit of initiative here.

Play Hard to Get

And then one of the things that I think really stirs all of us is playing hard to get. You know if people knew this in romance they would find it easier to find a partner. When you are so easy to get nobody wants you. When everybody wants you and they can’t get you, then they have to have you.

And when there is a product there that you are really wanting, but it is not that easy to get, then you want it all the more.

But you know if there are hundreds of them you say, “I can go and buy it tomorrow. I can come back next week when I feel like it, when I have a bit of money, when I have thought about it some more.”

So there has to be a sense of, “Now I want you to realize that this product is on a special sale now for the next 48 hours. And actually, because of the sale price that we are having, they are selling so fast that I expect that our warehouse is probably going to run out by the weekend.

So if you do plan to get this, I would just like to point out to you that if you delay you may not be able to buy it in a couple of days because it probably won’t be available anymore. And even if it is available I am afraid I can’t offer it to you at the same price.”

Chapter 03

The Close

Chapter 03 – The Close

See that leads you in now to the final step, which is the close.

Stair 5. Action

Until a person has conviction, until they are fully convinced that, “Yes this is a wonderful product. Yes I could use this product. I could see myself buying this product. I think I might be ready to buy it.”

Until they are convinced, you can’t close. You can’t finally come to the point where you say, “Okay let’s finish this deal. Let’s get the sale.”

Now in order to close the sale, you may have to take something away from the person. You may have to take from them the thing they are already relying on and depending on. That person has been sailing their little ship.

They say, “You know we have been using the Hoover vacuum cleaner for years and it has served us well. Why should I buy a Kirby at ten times the price?”

You see my little boat has held us out pretty well. You are offering them a new ship; a new boat to climb on.

Handle the Objections

Now until they are prepared to let go of this ship and climb onto the new one, until they are prepared to scuttle ship to sink their old ship and let it go, at this point, a person begins to give you objections.

Even though you may have bought them to the place where they are ready to buy, where they believe they should buy, now is when they start trying to find a reason not to buy. You need to know how to handle every kind of objection that a person can give you.

One of the first things they are going to say is, “Well we have always used that product, or, this company offers something very similar at a cheaper price” and you are going to have competition out there.

Handling Competition

How are you going to handle your competition?

Well if you are dealing with an analytical, firstly, any question or objection that they have, you had better have an answer for it. And when you have answered that one they will give you a few more but every person has some kind of reason, objection why they shouldn’t buy.

Hopefully, if you sold them really well they have already handled these objections in their mind and cast them aside because the desire is so strong it just overrules all their objections.

They are ready to dump that old ship and climb onboard yours as soon as possible. And that is wonderful, you can close the sale right away.

But unfortunately in true life it doesn’t always happen that way. People will object. People will say there are other products that are better and then people will make excuses.

You see there is something in human nature that says, “I don’t want to be sold.”

People love buying but they hate being sold. We all love buying. Don’t you love going into a shop, seeing something that you really want, and taking it and buying it?

That is until some stupid salesman walks up to you and says, “Oh I see you are looking at that product. It is really a wonderful thing that. Would you like me to tell you more about it?”

“It is alright I was just looking.”

We don’t like to be sold. You have to lead the person to the water, you can’t make them drink. You cannot be forceful.

And so even when you have bought the person to this point, they feel that they can’t just give up without giving a bit of a fight.

Tire Kicking

Now it is a known fact in car sales that very often when a person is at the point of buying the car that they will walk around the car and start to kick the tires. They call it ‘Tire Kicking’.

When you see the prospect kicking the tires, you know the sale is in the bag. You have the sale. He is just putting up a last fight. See if there is something wrong with the car. As if kicking the tires is going to do that.

There will always be tire kicking somewhere. The person will somehow try and give up a last fight. And when you see that it is a wonderful thing. It means you have that fish on the line and he is pulling against the line to try and get away now. But you have already hooked him. He can’t get away.

Now you have to play him very carefully. That is when people will say, “Well I really like it but you know it’s a bit expensive. I don’t know if I can afford that much right now.”

What are you going to do, drop the price?

“That is okay we will give you a discount.”

No, you missed the point. It is not the cost he is fighting about, he is just trying to find some reason to say, “At least I gave in with a fight. I didn’t just give in. At least I tried to fight back.”

All you do is steer the person away from the cost and go back to their desire.

You say, “Well what price do you put on a good relationship with your wife? What price do you put on the future of your children? What price do you put on finding the most beautiful woman in the world?”

You take them back to their desire and suddenly the price disappears again but you must handle it. You must handle the tire kicking, the little fight that the person gives.

The Real Reason for Buying

And if you can’t and the person gives you some kind of objection, the chances are that the reason they give you is the wrong one.

Frank Bettger in his book, ‘How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling’ speaks of a principle that he learned in his selling career. And he said every person has two reasons for doing something, one that sounds good and the real reason.

And so when a person objects and says why they can’t buy it, that is not the real reason. That is just one they gave you that sounds good.

You need to dig a little bit deeper and find out what the real reason is. And once you find out what the real reason is, you will uncover their core desire and you can zero right in on there and you can give them a reason to buy your product.

Handling Procrastination

How do you handle procrastination? That is the next problem you have.

Someone says, “Well yes I really like this. I think we will probably get one next month, just as soon as I get my bonus. We can’t afford it right now. We have a lot of commitments this month, but I will tell you what, we will think of buying it just before Christmas.”

How do you handle procrastination?

Firstly you need to explain to them the dangers of delaying and not making the decision right now. And so you better have some good reasons why.

And I am afraid sometimes you have just got to use fear. Fear of loss is one of the strongest motivations in life. Fear of loss will make us make decisions and do things right now because you might lose it.

Well you hadn’t probably even thought much of it up until now, until somebody said, “If you don’t do something right now, you are going to lose this. It is going to get taken away from you.”

Suddenly it becomes very important. Learn to show the person the dangers of delaying.

Then limit the availability as I said earlier.

Say, “Well you know we only have a few available in stock right now and we are not expecting another batch for another 6 to 8 months. So if you really want one for this summer you better move on it now because these things are selling like mad. You won’t believe how people are buying these. Everybody wants one.”

Give Deadlines

And then give them deadlines.

Say, “Okay, you want to think about it. I will tell you what, I will call you again tomorrow evening and that is about as long as I can give you.

“I really would like to hold the price for you and you know I will speak to my manager, but quite honestly I can’t hold the price. But I will hold it for you for another day. And then I am afraid I will have to let this go to the next person that comes and wants it.”

Give them deadlines that they must make a decision, otherwise people will not make the decision. People will want to go home and think about it.

And when they go home they are not going to go think about it, they are going to go and forget about it because some other salesman is going to be knocking on their door and make them think about that.

And if that person is good at closing the sale, they will give their money to that person and you will never make the sale. You must give the person a reason to get off their ship and come and climb on yours.

They may say, “Well you know if I get off my ship I might sink.”

Give Bonuses and Guarantees

Offer them a life jacket. Solve any problems that they have. Fulfill any desires that they have. And then throw in some bonuses.

Do you know I have in the past bought a product because of one of the bonuses that was given on it.  The product seemed okay but it didn’t really wow me. But one of the free bonuses they gave if you bought the product was something I had been wanting for so long and I had never seen anybody sell that. So I bought the product to get the free bonus.

You sell the car because of the stereo that is in it.

“I tell you what, if you buy this car we will throw in a free stereo for you, one of the very latest.”

“That sounds pretty good.”

How often do you buy something because of the freebie that comes with it? It really does help the person to make the decision right now.

“Well you know, this special offer, if you buy it now by Friday, I can offer you this extra bonus, all these extra specials with it, but this special is only until such-and-such a date.”

And then here is something very important. Offer them security and a guarantee.

They say, “Well what if I buy it and it breaks?”

“We guarantee our product for such-and-such a time. If for any reason you are unhappy with this and it isn’t working the way we promised, bring it back and we will give you your money back, or, we will fix it free of charge, immediately.”

Make the person feel secure by giving them some kind of guarantee and security.

Ask for the Order

And then to bring the close, don’t wait for them to jump and say, “Okay I will take one.”

Ask for the order. If you don’t ask for the order you won’t get it. Assume that they are going to say yes.

Don’t ask for the order in such a way, “Well, so uh, what do you think? Would you like to get it or not?”

No that is wrong.

“Okay, so would you like to pay today? Are you paying by check or by credit card? How would you like us to arrange delivery?”

You see you have assumed the sale and now you bring them to make other decisions.

Tell the prospect what to do. If you are selling on the internet tell them, “Click here, take out your credit card, fill in the information and complete the sale and your product will be off to you in the next shipment.”

Keep the Door Open

And finally if they still say, “Well not right now. No, I really, I am sorry but I am not going to make a decision now,” don’t just write them off.

You wasted all this time and all this effort, don’t just write them off and say, “Oh dumb useless cheapskate he doesn’t want to buy, let’s walk off.”

No, keep the door open. Get that person’s name and address or their email address. Keep in touch.

This prospect may have not made the decision now but they may be ready to make the decision pretty soon or later down the line. Maybe the time just wasn’t right. Maybe the finances weren’t right. Don’t give up on this prospect. Always keep a prospect for the future.

Sometimes it takes years before you sell a person, but keep in touch with them. Always ask for their information, their telephone number, their email address, whatever it is that you can contact them.

Seal the Deal

And then the final seal of the sale is get them to sign on the dotted line to give you a check or to give you the credit card information. That seals the deal and it brings a release to the tension.

Once the person finally signs on the dotted line, makes that payment, suddenly everything changes. Suddenly there is no more pressure.

The first thing you do is to congratulate the person for their sale. Make a fuss of them and tell them what a wonderful decision they made and how wise they were to make this decision.

Don’t say, “Well I got the sale. Let’s get out of here fast.”

“Thanks, we will see you.”

No, make a fuss of the person. They have now become your friend. They have now become your customer or your client. Congratulate them and thank them for the sale and continue to make a fuss of them. You know why? You could sell them something else again in the future.

Don’t think that this is a one off sale. Make the person feel happy.

How often have you bought something and afterwards thought, “I hope I did the right thing.”?

Make the person know they did the right thing. You don’t just give them the story while you are trying to make the sale but now after you have made the sale, assure them, give them some more good reasons for them to feel good that they made the decision.

And so in conclusion, selling is like climbing stairs. You start at the bottom, take one stair at a time, and if you make it to the top, you have a sale.

Attention, Interest, Desire, Conviction and Action. And when you close the sale you have reached the top of the stairs. The sale is complete.

If you follow that process always, climbing the stairs of selling, you will always succeed in getting a sale, and you will also build very good customers who will probably stick with you in the future and buy some more from you.

Section 02 - Temperamental Selling

Chapter 04

People Are Different

Section 02 - Temperamental Selling

Chapter 04 – People Are Different

We continue now with the next subject, which is temperamental selling. And no this is not about how to handle over emotional female sales reps. It is about selling taking into account the human temperaments.

Now in selling a common mistake that people make is thinking that one size fits all. People have this idea that, “If I just get the right kind of sales pitch, if I can just work out the perfect sales pitch it will work powerfully on every single person that I give it to.”

I am afraid not. Perhaps that is why you have such a bad closing ratio and why so many people are saying no when you try to sell to them. Because you think that you have the final most powerful sales pitch and it worked so wonderfully on the first person. And the next person was totally unmoved and untouched.

“Why, isn’t that strange? There must be something wrong with that second person definitely. They didn’t respond to my sales pitch.”

No, the difference is that people are not all the same. They are made up of different personalities and temperamental types. And if you ignore this vital subject, you cannot succeed to the same degree as if you had these weapons in your arsenal.

Now I am going to give you the weapons. I am going to give you the tools that you need to become a master sales person, somebody who can sell to anybody. But, actually, it is going to take a little bit more than knowing how to handle other people.

When it comes to temperaments, firstly you need to know your own temperament and recognize your own temperamental strengths and weaknesses.

I covered a lot of this in our module on personal growth and sometimes I will overlap and repeat things. You know people don’t remember things unless you keep repeating them.

So If I teach something and you say, “Oh but you said that before in another section,” well I am glad you noticed. Probably most people didn’t and thought it was a brand new revelation. So we give it every time until eventually it gets through and somebody picks it up.

So then know your own strengths and weaknesses of temperament and know what different temperament types respond better to.

Then you need to recognize gender differences and that is going to be a whole teaching by itself, how to sell to the genders. How to take sexuality into account. Selling using sex appeal. That is going to be an exciting subject.

And then we need to look at general concepts of how to influence people, how to persuade people and that goes even beyond selling.

There are so many extra things in human nature. This whole teaching is going to be about understanding human nature. And the better we understand human nature the better we are going to be capable of getting people to buy our product and hopefully become extremely wealthy.

All Things to All Men

So, let us look at temperaments. The apostle Paul said that he became all things to all men and that he could by all means win some. If you want to be effective in selling, you will have to learn to become all things to all people.

You say, “But that is false. I am who I am.”

Well who you ‘am’ is going to stay poor unless you change. Personal growth, go back and review the module. If you are not prepared to change and adapt to every single person that you meet, you are not going to be effective in selling.

So if you are going to become all things to all people you better be able to identify your own strengths and weaknesses and you better be able to identify what kind of temperament and personality other people have so that you can build bridges to them and be more effective in your selling.

Know Your Own Temperament

So let us start with you. The first thing that you will have to do is to correctly assess your own temperament. Now I am amazed at how people can go through all the teachings that we give on temperaments and be totally wrong when it comes to assessing human temperament.

I remember the very first course that I ever went on where they taught us some of the concepts of temperaments. And there were some people who, unless they had actually gone through the questionnaire and ticked off all the answers that assessed each temperament, would never ever have believed that they were that temperament.

And it was really startling for me when they batched us together, all of the same temperamental type to find out that this guy that I met earlier on in the seminar that I thought I had absolutely nothing in common with, he actually thought exactly like me. He was actually the exact same temperamental make up.

So if you haven’t been through the temperamental teaching and the original foundational module on temperaments, go through it again. But you must learn to firstly correctly assess your own temperamental makeup before you try to assess other people.

Two Parameters

Now how do we assess temperament again? We use two simple parameters - emotional expression and assertiveness or imposing of the will.

You either express your feelings very clearly and openly, or you withhold your feelings. You are either strong in imposing your will and asserting your will or you are weak and allow other people to dominate and control you. And you don’t like to be pushy.

Those are the parameters. And out of that, we get four temperamental types as we have taught.

The Emotive Parameter

So the first thing you need to do to assess yourself is to have a look at these two parameters, the emotional parameter and the assertion parameter. And here is the kind of mistakes most people make. The emotive parameter is not the way you feel. It is the way you show your feelings.

You say, “Well you know I really am such an emotional person. I really am so emotional inside. My feelings really just control me.”

But nobody knows it. You sit there and sulk all by yourself and wallow and think about your own little thing and you are all emotive and upset. But people look at your face and there is this deadpan expression.

Do you want to assess your emotive parameter? Go stand in front of the mirror. Go look at some photos of yourself and see how often you see the smile lines or the frown lines. All the signs that you express outwardly what you are feeling.

You see we all have emotions. If you didn’t have emotions, you would not be human. And actually even animals have emotions, so actually you wouldn’t be a living creature if you didn’t have emotions. We all have feelings.

Now you may be the kind of person who thinks you have your feelings all well under control but you show them without being aware of it.

See the emotive parameter is not the way you feel but the way you show your desires and feelings. You express it to other people.

Now one of the signs of emotion and expression of emotion is talkativeness. I have this in the original teaching. And a lot of people went out and immediately wrongly assessed everybody else out there because they talk a lot. Now there is a big difference between talkativeness in a non-emotive person and talkativeness in an emotive person. It is very different.

See the analytical talks for hours and hours the most boring and over detailed talk, talk, talk. Eventually you want to get out of there.

The expressive is excited and he is talking and he is talking with excitement and emotion. See that is expression of emotion.

Talkativeness by itself is not an expression of emotion. Talkativeness is an expression of the mind. So be very careful in assessing temperament by saying, “Well that person is very talkative, therefore they are very expressive.”

No, not necessarily. Start an analytical going and they can talk for hours. That doesn’t mean they are expressive. They are the total opposite of expressive.

So be very careful in the way you express these parameters.

One of the signs of emotive expression is people orientation. When you are emotive you tend to be more involved with people. If you are of the emotive temperament, then you are going to be happy being with other people.

You see if you look at the four temperaments the way that they are, you can actually take a complete line down or a complete line across.

If we put the high emotion on the right and the low emotion on the left, cut a line down the middle, you will see that there are two temperaments that are emotively expressive and two that are not emotively expressive.

The non-emotively expressive are the analytical and the driver. The emotively expressive are the amiable and the expressive temperament. And you will find that everybody on the right side tends to be very oriented in working with people. Those on the left side tend to be more work oriented.

So start by finding firstly which side of the parameter you are and then try to narrow it down.

The Assertive Parameter

Now we look at the assertion parameter and this is one of the more difficult things to assess. Are you an assertive person? Well let me ask you a simple question. Do you feel comfortable confronting other people or do you try to avoid confrontation?

Now here is another mistake people make. They think, “Well I don’t just give in to anybody, I can stand firm and fast. I don’t let people push me around.”

That is not assertiveness. That is stubbornness and is one of the major traits of the analytical who is the most unassertive person of all. So don’t think because you are strong and you don’t let people push you around that you are assertive. No, you are not.

Yeah you may have a strong will but assertiveness is when you express that will towards other people. So be very careful in wrongly assessing  them here.

And of course the assertion temperament also has strong leadership capability because people that are assertive, they tend to take charge and tell other people what to do. And they make better leaders because of that.

The lower assertion people are the followers. They wait for somebody to tell them what to do. They don’t want to impose their will in any way.

So have a very good look at these two parameters when you assess yourself. Are you an emotional person? That is irrelevant. Do you express your feelings and desires so that people outwardly can look and know some of what is going on inside of you? Then you are emotively expressive. Then you show your emotions.

Are you a person who is able to confront, to take charge and initiate things? Then you are an assertive person. If you are a person who prefers to sit on the sidelines, follow the crowd and just not push yourself too much, then you are a non-assertive person.

It is very simple to assess whether you are high or low in those two and you can peg your main temperament immediately.

If you haven’t done that effectively yet, go back and watch the teachings on temperament, go read it, whichever way you prefer and make sure that you have assessed your temperament correctly.

Chapter 05

Temperamental Selling Weaknesses

Chapter 05 – Temperamental Selling Weaknesses

Now all of us are a mixture of temperaments. Every single person sits in a comfortable temperament and can swing to one of the side temperaments, very seldom the opposite temperament.

So you may be a bit confused when you look at the temperament and say, “Well actually I am a bit of at least three of those.”

Well then you are perfectly normal. You should be a bit of at least three. If you are a bit of all four, you are not normal, but it is a good thing to be. And that is the ultimate goal we are aiming for. But very few people are comfortable in all four temperaments.

So assess yourself very clearly and know what your strongest comfort zone is. And once you have found out what that is then you will be able to identify what are your strengths and your weaknesses when it comes to selling.

And that is really the bottom line that we want to look at now isn’t it?

So I am going to take each one of the temperaments and I am just going to give you a few ideas of some of the strengths and weaknesses of each temperament.

Now when it comes to selling I can tell you right now that the most effective temperament for selling is the expressive.  And the least effective temperament in selling is the analytical.

Why is that? It is because good selling technique requires both emotional expression and assertion. The analytical has neither. And the expressive has both.

That does not necessarily mean that if you are an expressive temperament you are automatically good at sales. It also doesn’t mean that if you are an analytical you are incapable of selling.

The difference lies in how you deal with your temperamental strengths and weaknesses and how capable you are of swinging out of your comfort zone to become what is necessary to succeed in the selling environment.

Weaknesses of the Driver

So let’s look at the driver. What are some of the weaknesses of the driver temperament?

Firstly, the driver temperament lacks patience and understanding. The driver doesn’t care too much about people. He is more concerned about the job. So he tends to just ride over people’s feelings and use people to accomplish his or her ends.

The driver tends to be very concise and to the point, not all flowery and detailed, just the facts and nothing more.

“I will tell you all that you need to know.”

“But I want to know a bit more detail.”

“You don’t need to know that. It is not important.”

Just give me the facts and let’s get over with it.

The driver doesn’t give you a lot of detail. Therefore, the driver doesn’t paint too many pictures. “Don’t have time to paint pictures, just give me the facts. Don’t have time to waste.”

The driver is very time concerned. That is great. You get a lot of things done and make great managers, but if you are going to sell that way you are going to upset people’s feelings.

People will not like you, people will not want to deal with you, will not want to buy from you. And you may succeed in imposing your will on them and you may succeed with certain temperaments more than others (may) and we will get to that shortly.

Weaknesses of the Analytical

Okay let’s look at the analytical. What are the weaknesses of the analytical?

Firstly the analytical is too elaborate and goes into too much detail. The analytical cannot make a simple statement like, “I walked down the road to the shop.” He has to give you absolute detail.

He will say something like, “I walked out the front door and the sun was shining beautifully. There was a lovely wind blowing and we walked. Then the dogs were barking. Can you believe those dogs were barking again? And you know by the time I got to the end of the street…”

We don’t want to know all of that. And if you are going to give sales and give a great big long sales presentation speech, people are waiting to get finished because they didn’t want to know all that information.

Then the analytical gets too technical. We have to get it just right. Don’t want to make mistakes. It is not 3.5 amps. It is 3.45. Let’s get it correct. We have to give the facts and we have to give them correctly.

An analytical will sometimes make a wrong statement and in the middle correct it and say, “Oh no, sorry that was wrong. It should be this way.”

Who cares? And because there is no emotion in the analytical, they are too impersonal. They are like a machine dealing with facts and figures. Selling involves people reaching people, building relationships with people.

Without that, nobody wants to buy from you. They might as well just buy from a computer. Rather go to the bank terminal than the teller you know because the bank terminal doesn’t talk back. All I wanted to do is give me the money, just give me the facts and let’s get out of there.

Analyticals are great order takers. If people have already decided they want to buy something, come in and ask for it and ask a few questions, the analytical is there to simply give the facts.

Analyticals can speak in a monotone but you might as well be a robot. You will sound like a computer talking. You give all the facts and out it comes. It is boring!

Weaknesses of the Amiable

Then we have the amiable. Does the amiable have any weaknesses?

Yes the amiable beats around the bush.

The amiable doesn’t come to the subject. He pops in and says, “Hi, how are you doing today? Isn’t the weather lovely? Oh, it is so awesome. Man it is been so hot this summer though. How are you guys doing? I like your new car.”

The guy is saying, “So what did you come here for?”

And you have to wait for the amiable to get around to it.

“Oh by the way I was just walking down the street and I thought I would pop in and tell you about our new product.”

“Ah so that is what it is?”

The amiable is afraid to confront. They don’t want to upset people. They want to be nice to people.

They say, “Let’s not be too hard or too direct. I don’t want to ruffle any feathers.”

The amiable is a time waster.

He says, “I can’t understand. My boss told me to go out and do ten sales a day. There are just not enough hours in the day to do that. I can’t see ten people in a day it would take hours!”

You are taking too long.

Weaknesses of the Expressive

We come finally to the expressive. Does the expressive have weaknesses? I told you the expressive is the best salesperson of all, but yes he has weaknesses.

The expressive is actually totally unconcerned with human nature. They are so busy running on their track and excited and doing their thing that they actually don’t have time to observe the people that they are working with.

They say, “That is being too analytical. I don’t have time to be analytical.”

The expressive is not interested in technicalities. He says, “I don’t need to know the details. I don’t need to know why it works. I just need to know that it works and get you to buy it.”

Well sometimes that is good, sometimes bad. I said before, and I say it again, if you want to sell, you need to know your product inside out. The expressive doesn’t have time to go and study the whole manual and all the details.

He says, “I don’t have time. Get somebody else to do that.”

The analytical is the opposite. The analytical memorizes the manual. They are two opposite extremes but neither of them are perfect are they?

This now is the biggest mistake the expressive ever makes. The biggest weakness of the expressive is to talk too much and oversell. You have the person so excited they are ready to buy. They are almost ready to sign the check, and while they are doing that you open your big mouth and say, “And oh I forgot to tell you, our product can also do this.”

“What? No, I didn’t want that. On the other hand maybe I should think about it.”

The expressive oversells, gives too much information, too much detail, and just lets the emotion and their mouth run away. It is a weakness.

Well what are your weaknesses? Where is your temperament? If you are any of these temperaments, I will guarantee you have had just a little something hit you there.

You are likely saying, “Oh okay that is me. Yes I recognize that one.”

Those are the temperamental weaknesses.

Chapter 06

Temperamental Selling Strengths

Chapter 06 – Temperamental Selling Strengths

How about the temperamental strengths? You know the great thing is each of the temperaments has strengths and weaknesses. Like I said, when it comes to selling unfortunately the analytical has a lot more to deal with, but the expressive is not necessarily the perfect salesperson either. But recognize your weaknesses and then recognize your strengths.

Strengths of the Driver

We start with the driver. What are the strengths of the driver?

The driver is never afraid to close or ask for the order. So many sales are lost when a beautiful sales presentation has been made but the salesperson is afraid. We get to that last part and we get all nervous.

What will the person say? What if they say no? Maybe I will just let them think about it and come back later.

The driver is not afraid to say, “Okay that is it. Do you like the product? Do you want to buy it? Let’s go.”

He is assertive. Who cares what you feel? I need a sale here, let’s get it done. It is a good thing because without the close there is no sale.

The driver does not get sidetracked too easily. The driver doesn’t want to know about your cousin’s wedding that you went to.

You say, “Oh yes that reminds me of…” and off you go and talk and talk. Before you know it you are off the subject and now you have to try and get back on again.

You see the driver has a very clear sales track to run on and they don’t allow themselves to be sidetracked.

Strengths of the Analytical

Next is the analytical. You mean the analytical has got strengths? Yes believe it or not they do.

The analytical gives an appearance of really knowing what they are doing. They are very knowledgeable.

When you speak to an analytical, you know that this guy knows his product. This woman knows her product inside out. No matter what question you have, you know that you are going to get the answer you are looking for.

The analytical isn’t pushy. You don’t feel threatened. You don’t feel like this person is trying to just grab you and force you into the sale. The analytical just lets you have the freedom to make your own choice when you are quite ready for it.

Sometimes they make great sales attendants in a shop compared to a driver. The driver walks up to you while you are in the shop and tries to sell you before you even had a chance to look at the product.

The analytical on the other hand will be there waiting for you to eventually say, “I need some help with this.”

“Sure, what can I help you with?”

“Can you give me some details?”

“Sure,” and they will tell you everything.

You say, “Wow this guy really knows his stuff! I feel good with this person.”

Yes an analytical can be very good in sales in certain situations. Just don’t get them to go and knock on doors and sell life assurance or something like that. That is a very difficult thing for an analytical to do.

Strengths of the Amiable

How about the amiable? What are his strengths?

The amiable disarms people with their friendliness. The amiable is a nice guy.

The amiable woman is just so sweet. You just love being with this person. You just feel so good in their presence. You just can’t think a negative thought about this person. They just seem to understand you so easily. They seem so sensitive to your feelings.

And the amiable finds prospects more easily, because he is aware of human nature and is aware of people’s needs. And he finds out more about what goes on inside of a person and uncovers their core desires very easily. And people will not feel threatened.

They will think, “Let’s open their heart wide and just pour out everything that you need to know.”

Strengths of the Expressive

What are the strengths of the expressive?

The expressive is extremely motivational and inspirational. The expressive will inspire you to want to go out and conquer the world. He will get you so excited about the product that you want to buy two right away.

They just build you up. They just get you excited. They motivate you and they lead you on. The kind of person you just want to get behind and follow.

You say, “This is the person I want to follow. I want to be like that.”

And when the expressive comes to closing the sale, they don’t expect any objections. They don’t ever expect any problems.

The expressive runs right over the hole without even seeing it, while the analytical is standing there and saying, “That hole looks a bit deep. I wonder if I can make it across.”

Because of that, the expressive very often wins where nobody else does. They get people all excited about their product and while people are excited, they grab the sale. They cover the whole lot. Get the person’s attention, arouse the interest and the desire, bring conviction and close.

If you are an employer and you are looking to employ sales staff, somebody comes for an interview, check out their temperament. If they are expressive, you can work with them. It doesn’t matter if they can’t sell yet. You can teach them how to sell but you know they already have the natural capability to be successful in selling.

If you have an analytical, well don’t send them out in the field. You can use such a person in certain kinds of sales environments, particularly if you are selling a technical product that requires a sales rep who stands in a shop, answers questions for people, and helps them know more about the product. Such a person can really become a good salesperson in that environment. So be very careful about who you choose.

Now look at yourself. What temperament are you? Do you know by now? And now that you have assessed what your temperament is, have you identified what your weaknesses are and have you identified what your strengths are?

Changing Your Temperament

Now you are ready to start selling, provided you are able to change your temperament. Why? Because I am going to show you shortly that each temperament requires a different kind of person.

And if you go and try to sell somebody of the complete opposite temperament and think that you understand this person because they think like you, think again. You are wrong, they don’t think like you.

They will totally misunderstand you, they will not build a relationship with you, and they won’t want to have anything to do with you because you are so unlike that person.

We are automatically, naturally attracted to people who are just like us. And there are methods in selling and we will cover this when we start looking at the techniques of persuasion and influence.

Sometimes in order to be effective in selling, you need to actually even begin to look and act like the person you are selling to, to make them feel comfortable with you. You have to build a bridge to that person.

If you are coming as an expressive and you want to sell to an analytical, you will have to change.

So how do we change? I am not going to go into a lot of detail.

Changing Your Emotions

How do you control your emotion? Choose when to smile. Choose when to show expression on your face and choose when not to show anything.

There is a time to let people know what you are feeling, either by the expressions on your face, or by the words of your mouth. And there is a time to keep them guessing by not saying a word and keeping a deadpan expression on your face.

Practice these things. Go and look in the mirror and say, “What do I feel more comfortable doing? Is it smiling?”

Now if I were to take a video of everybody sitting in one of my lectures as I have been speaking, I could point out to you immediately the ones that were smiling every time I said something, and the ones that sat there with a deadpan expression on their face.

You see that is your natural temperament. Now that is wonderful if you are selling to a person of that temperament, but can you change. Can you learn to control that natural smile and without scowling because that is also emotion.

You see, we have this idea that I won’t smile, I will scowl. But that is also emotion. No, you have to be deadpan.

You know in the field of gambling, where they play this game poker, we have developed this expression, “He has a poker face.”

Why? Because poker players have to come to the place where you cannot tell by looking at them whether they have a good hand of cards or not. A person with a poker face tells you nothing. None of their feelings are being expressed either positive or negative.

Changing Your Assertion

How about assertion? Well you are used to pushing people around and saying what you think. Shut up. Bite your tongue.

You are used to just taking initiative instead of waiting for these analytical types all day to decide what they want to do.

You say, “Let’s just get in there and do it!”

No, you will have to wait. You will need to hold back. Going to be a robot. It is going to be still.

It depends. Maybe you are naturally that kind of person. Now this is a more difficult one. Move into action. Pretend. Fake it. Act like you have it under control. Act like you are full of emotion. Put on a false smile.

Try it. Practice it. After a while, it won’t be false anymore.

You know that old expression that says, “Fake it until you make it.”

You say, “But that is false.”

Do you want to stay poor or do you want to get sales? The best salespeople are the actors because they are able to portray what is necessary to build a bridge to that person and get the sale.

Practice Changing

So do you know your temperament now? Start practicing changing your temperament in different circumstances. Do it on purpose.

Get somebody close to you to give you a bit of feedback and say, “Do I look like I changed? Am I different? Do you feel more comfortable with me now or do I irritate you? Do you feel threatened by my presence?”

Practice it and have fun with it. Okay I know that is emotional, but have fun with it. We can all have fun no matter what our temperament is.

Chapter 07

Relating to Other Temperaments

Chapter 07 – Relating to Other Temperaments

Now that we know what our temperament is and we know how to handle our temperament, we are ready to go out there into the big wide world and face the thousands of people out there that all have different mixes of temperaments.

I need to learn how to relate to each temperament. I need to find the right buttons to push in each person to get them to respond and to buy my product.

So let’s look at each one of these temperaments and see how we can relate to them.

Relating to the Driver

How do you relate to somebody who is driver temperament?

A driver temperament is a strong temperament and if you want to impress a driver, you had better come across as strong. A driver despises weakness. The driver is not interested in the nice guy especially if the nice guy is weak.

The driver wants professionalism. He wants somebody who has got it together, who has their head screwed on right. And the driver wants freedom to make his or her own choice.

Don’t ever try and push a driver into making a close. Don’t ever try and impose your will on a driver. You will lose.

The driver just wants the facts and then wants to be left alone to make the decision. And when the driver makes a decision then that is it! It is over! He either said yes or no. And if she said no, she is not budging. You don’t try and resell or impose your will or try another sales approach. It is too late.

And here is one of the most important things in dealing with a driver. A driver is very conscious of time, so don’t waste time, come to the point. Get to the point and get there quickly. Make your sales pitch, give your facts and then shut up.

A driver will be impressed and will say, “This person knows his stuff. He is very professional; very impressive.”

If the driver wants to know anything, he will ask you. If she needs something more to make her decision, she will let you know. You just give your pitch, you wait, and then the driver makes their decision.

Relating to the Analytical

How do you relate to an analytical?

Firstly don’t ever try to challenge an analytical. Don’t ever give them a goal to reach. Analyticals don’t go for goals. An expressive yes, when we get to that you will see an expressive thrives on challenges. Don’t ever try and push an analytical by giving them a goal or a target to reach.

And if you want to present anything to an analytical, don’t be too concise. Give the details. Answer the questions before they ask them, because if you don’t tell the analytical enough, he is going to ask you questions.

“What about this? And what about that? And does your product do this? And have you thought about that?”

The analytical will ask you questions about your product that you never thought about yourself. So you had better know your product well if you want to sell to an analytical.

An analytical wants to know how many horsepower the engine is, even if you don’t know what a horsepower is.

And then probably the strongest thing about an analytical which you cannot fight, and I suggest you don’t even think of fighting this, is that the analytical likes things which are familiar and well established.

The analytical works on past proven things. He is the one who is most likely to say, “We have always done it this way and it has worked fine for us up until now. We don’t want to change thank you.”

So don’t come with your exciting brand new product that does it different to the way that anybody has ever done it before. The analytical is unmoved.

He will say, “Well that sounds a bit risky. If nobody has ever done that before it might not work. Have you tested this thing thoroughly in the marketplace? Are you sure? How many people are doing this?”

The analytical wants tested tried and true principles.

“This product has been proved in the market. This product has been established and it works every time.”

Now the analytical will listen to you!

Relating to the Amiable

How about the amiable? When you come to an amiable, the relationship comes first and the product comes afterwards. The amiable does not want to hear about your product until he has got to know you better.

So if you are trying to hide your personality and just be like a machine with an amiable, you are not getting past first base. If you are not prepared to open your heart, tell the amiable a little bit about yourself, or show enough interest in that person to find out a little bit about them, your sale will not even get off the ground.

Your appeal to the amiable must be the appeal of a friend. You are not coming as a stranger, you are not coming as somebody to solve their problems from an external viewpoint. You are coming as a friend.

And take it slowly. Don’t rush it. Don’t get in there, do your sales pitch and push. This is the total opposite of the driver. The amiable wants to sit and talk for a while. Get the amiable talking about themselves, encourage it. Don’t look at your watch and think, “Well you know I have another appointment in half an hour.”

Well how important is this sale to you? Don’t rush it.

Relating to the Expressive

We come finally to the expressive. How do you relate to an expressive?

For an expressive, excitement is essential. Without excitement, the expressive is unmoved.

If you cannot stir up emotion and get the expressive just so totally excited about it that he says, “This is the most awesome product,” then you will not make the sale.

And especially it should be something brand new, something that has never been done before; something risky. You see the expressive thrives on excitement and on a challenge. The expressive must be so excited about your product.

And then buying it must be a challenge. He doesn’t want to buy something everybody else has.

You say, “Well our product is totally unique. And quite honestly, there are only a select few people who have really identified the true benefit of this product and those people their lives have been changed and transformed. They are taking off. They stand out in the community. Everybody walks past their house and says, ‘Wow that is different.’ ”

The expressive is listening to you! The expressive wants to be different. He wants to be outrageous. He wants to take something that is a challenge that has never been done before or that is difficult to do.

The expressive is not overwhelmed by the price being too high. An analytical will complain, whine, and groan and say, “Your price is too high. Can’t you cut it down five dollars?”

What is the big deal about five dollars? But that could make the difference with an analytical.

For an expressive, lower the price by a hundred and you are talking, because if it is expensive, it must be good. It is a challenge.

You say, “Most people out there can’t afford something this expensive.”

“Well who says I can’t?”

You see challenges, excitement, goal orientation - this is the entire thing that motivates the expressive.

Matching the Two Temperaments Together

So now you have seen your temperamental mix and you have seen the way the customer is going to be. Now you have to try and match these two together.

Selling as a Driver

So where are you sitting right now? Perhaps you are sitting in a driver temperament as your comfort zone. If this is the case, your approach to each of the other temperaments will have to change.

Now you can relate very much to the analytical because the analytical also has a work orientation and a non-people orientation. You are on the same parameter. So the driver can actually be very effective in selling to an analytical.

The driver is capable of thinking like an analytical because it is a side temperament and you can swing to it fairly easy.

An analytical finds it extremely difficult to make final decisions. They sometimes need a driver just to push them that little bit to make the decision and then they will make it. So as a driver, you will probably find you can sell pretty well to analytical.

A driver can also sell to an expressive because the expressive is strong and the driver is strong. You are both extremely oriented towards getting the job done, both strongly assertive.

It is just the driver who isn’t that emotively expressive. But that doesn’t matter. You have a common ground. All you need to do is just to stir the person up and you will probably find that the driver will be more effective in giving a challenge to the expressive and that could bring the sale.

Now a driver selling to an amiable is the most difficult situation of all because amiables do not feel comfortable with drivers. Amiables feel that a driver is trying to impose their will on them.

“This person is coming to my house to sell his product to me and doesn’t care anything about me. He is not interested in hearing about my new baby boy. He is not interested in anything about me, about the fact that my son just made it to the first rugby team. He doesn’t care! I don’t want to deal with a person like this.”

So if you are the driver you will have to change. And it is very difficult to change to the complete opposite temperament.

How are you going to do that? You will have to fake it. Just smile and ask questions. That is all. Just get the person talking about themselves and show an interest and be friendly. It may kill you for half an hour but you can do it. It is worth it for the sale.

Now if you are selling to another driver that is very easy. You know exactly how this person thinks. They think just like you. And you know exactly how to approach them. You just treat them the way you would want to be treated. It is very easy.

The trouble is most drivers out there are always just selling to drivers. Go and check their customer list. They are all drivers.

Go to the expressives and check their customer list. They are all the expressives. Go to the analytical and you will see that all their customer lists are analyticals. It is the same with the amiables. All their customer lists are to amiables. You are reaching a quarter of the market.

Selling as an Amiable

Now if you are an analytical that is extremely difficult. It is extremely difficult to sell to a driver!

You must learn to be strong. It is difficult to sell especially to an expressive because the expressive thrives on everything that you are not, but you can do it.

If you make up your mind to identify the kind of person you are dealing with, there has to be something in that person that you can identify with in some way. And that will allow you to build a bridge to that person, so they will open their heart wide to be ready to receive your sales pitch and to buy your product.

Selling to Different Genders

Now temperaments are just one aspect of human nature. I haven’t specifically dealt with masculinity or femininity yet but gender is another thing all together.

What happens if you are selling to a woman of each temperament? What happens if you are selling to a man of each temperament? Is there a difference?

No not really, temperament is a temperament. But a gender is not a gender.

If you are a woman, how do you sell to women? If you are a woman, how do you sell to men? And if you are a man, who do you sell to the most, to men or to women?

See the world out there is mixed genders, male and female and not all of them are masculine and feminine because there are effeminate men and masculine women. And so you have to look beyond the bodily organs of the person you are dealing with. You have to look at the actual nature within them, the expression of masculinity. What one of the great psychiatrists called the animus and the anima, the inner feminine and masculine natures.

And that is a whole big subject all by itself. And I will be covering that in a lot of detail. We will include sexuality and everything else in it and that will take us beyond temperament. And so perhaps we will look at that next time.

But for now, I hope you have understood what temperament you are in. I hope you have been challenged to begin to change your temperament if needed. And I want you to go out and practice now as you meet each person out there, each new prospect, each new customer, make it your habit before you open your mouth to just briefly assess that person. And assess yourself and say, “Okay, how do I need to swing or change to somehow relate to this person?”

And have fun with it. Try it out. See what works and what doesn’t and eventually you are going to improve your sales capability to the point where you can sell ice to the Eskimos. You can sell anything to anyone.

And when you do that, you are going to be the most effective salesperson out there. If you are looking for a job, everybody will want to hire you. If you have your own business, you are going to get rich.

Section 03 - Selling with Sex Appeal

Chapter 08

Usually for Men Only

Section 03 - Selling with Sex Appeal

Chapter 08 – Usually for Men Only

Today we come to a very interesting subject, selling with sex appeal. I am sure that should arouse a lot of interest in most people but it may not quite be what you expect.

I thought I wouldn’t have much to say on this subject, but the more I looked at it I realized it is actually quite a vast subject. So I am just going to touch on the main aspects that we need to consider today.

Now business was once mainly the domain of men, not of women. If you don’t believe me then tell me what is the opposite of businessman? Businesswoman is a non English word. What is the opposite of salesman? There is no such word as saleswoman.

A businessman and salesman are standard terms in our language, certainly in English, because business and the process of selling which goes with business originally were largely the domain or men. And when you thought of somebody coming to sell or somebody owning a business, you usually thought of a man, not of a woman.

But today this has all changed and it is still evolving and changing. Today you cannot refer to a business owner as a businessman. You have either got to say business owner or business person. It kind of sticks in the mouth doesn’t it? You don’t speak about a salesman you have to say a salesperson. You can sound a bit better if you say sales representative or sales rep.

Danger of Women’s Liberation

But you have to be very careful you see because there is a movement known as the Women’s Liberation Movement that made a big effort at bringing equality between the sexes.

The Women’s Liberation Movement is not the only liberation movement. There are racial liberation movements. There are all sorts of cultural liberation movements out there and all of them actually kind of make the same mistake in trying to bring equality, which inevitably over swing the other way.

And so the danger of the woman’s liberation movement is to not make women equal with men but to make women greater than men. And actually this is a failure in both sexes and I will be looking at it as we continue.

Include Both Sexes

If you are going to succeed in business, you cannot be sexist in your approach in any way. You have to include both sexes. Now there are complexities in our culture, in our archetypes, in the way we grew up that kind of complicate this a little bit.

Tendency to Follow Masculinity

For example in some languages where gender is included in every noun, it becomes difficult to distinguish when to use male or female when you have a mixed group.

I know in some languages if you have a group of women there is one term that is used. If you have a group of men and women, another term is used. But what happens if you have a group of men and women together? The tendency is to reuse the masculine and not the feminine.

Throughout the years man was known as man. We didn’t use the term humanity. When we spoke about humankind we used the term man as though man was the superior of two genders. But nobody thought about gender those days. When you referred to man you knew that it meant mankind.

But today the thinking has all changed. When you use the term ‘man’ if you are a woman you immediately feel that this person is being sexist and over emphasizing the masculine gender.

Now we have a problem. We have a preference of the masculine or the feminine personal pronoun. In the past the masculine personal pronoun was the standard. When you were using an illustration in talking, and you weren’t referring to a male or a female, the tendency was to always use the masculine.

When you were speaking about a person doing something you would say, “He usually does it that way.”

You are not actually thinking so much of a man when you say it, you are speaking about people in general. But today you can’t use that term anymore because women will be offended.

We have tried to change it a little bit in English and we start using ‘them’ and ‘they’ when we are referring to a single person. And sometimes you can get away with it, and most of us understand this, but it is a very difficult thing to steer between.

It is a real problem, and we face this problem especially when it comes to the business realm and dealing with people.

Personal Pronouns in Speaking or Writing

Now if you are giving a lecture or you are writing you have to be careful not to major on your gender.

You see it is great for me to use ‘you’ and ‘your’ because nobody out there thinks, “Is this male or female?” because ‘you’ doesn’t have a gender.

But what if a person were to show his, or is it her, true feelings? You see now I have a problem. The moment I start giving the person a gender, I can’t say his or her without offending somebody.

Well these days I think most men have kind of got used to it. It doesn’t really make much difference to men I have found. Women are the ones who tend to be more sensitive about this. The exception is when we go overboard the other way, and I will be dealing with that shortly.

The important thing when you are dealing with a group of people is do not major on gender and especially do not major on your gender.

No Gender Favorites

You see if I were to stand up here as a man and with every illustration use the personal pronoun he, him, or his the immediate impression is that I am favoring my gender and I can then offend my audience.

Of course if a woman stands up and does the same thing and uses the feminine personal pronoun, after a while the men will begin to feel that she is trying to push her gender and impose a feminine way of thinking on the group. So it is a real problem. We have to keep a balance.

Getting the Balance Right

Well now how do we get around it? There are times when ‘they’ doesn’t sound right and you can’t use ‘you’, but you have to refer specifically to a gender.

There are only two ways you can do it. You can either say ‘him’ or ‘her’ every time you refer to a person or you can take turns.

I try to steer both ways, and you will notice it in my teaching. There are times when I will use ‘him’ or ‘her’. There are times when I will use only ‘him’, and there are times when I will use only ‘her’.

That way you keep everybody happy. If you use a male illustration that is good. Always try and add a female illustration to counter balance it so that both sides of the story are happy. You can use them alternately.

Some people go overboard one way or the other. Don’t go overboard one way or the other. Always keep a balance. You are always appealing to a mixed audience.

Now if you are a man selling only to men that is a different matter. If your audience is only men, that is a different matter, and the same for a woman. If you are a woman selling only to woman and your audience is only women then it is not a problem.

If you are going to use a masculine gender in there it is quite clear you are talking about a man. But if you are speaking as a person in general, all the persons you are dealing with are masculine or feminine and so there is no confusion.

You may think that this is a small thing but it is not. You can lose a sale, you can lose a prospect on that one little thing by using a wrong gender and offending somebody, and they get all uptight and upset with you and they don’t want to listen to a word that you said.

So when it comes to selling you have to know how to handle the sexes. You need to know how to appeal to each sex in the right way. That is why I call this selling with sex appeal.

Now let us look firstly at selling to the same sex and then selling to the opposite sex.

Identify With Your Prospect

If you are going to sell to a person of the same sex or gender as you, the first thing that you can do very easily and you should do in selling, is to identify with that person.

It is very easy as a man to identify with other men. It is very easy as a woman to identify with other women because generally men and women have a certain way of thinking. I will deal with that shortly as we get to it.

And so you can very quickly identify with a person of the same gender. How then are you going to distinguish between different people?

The differences are going to lie in temperament. So if you are a man dealing with men, you are going to have men of different temperament. If you are a woman dealing with women, you are going to have women of different temperament.

And so we continue then to apply the principles that I taught on selling to the temperaments, which we covered last time.

Selling to the Opposite Sex

If you are selling to the opposite sex it is not quite that simple. You cannot easily identify with the person on the basis of sex or gender. You have to know a lot more about the person before you can identify with them.

So if you are selling to a member of the opposite sex you need to find out a little bit more about the person before you can build a bridge. It is very easy to build a bridge based on gender. It is not so easy to build a bridge with a member of the opposite sex unless you know a little bit more about them. So find out a bit more about the person first.

And don’t ever make the mistake of being negative about the opposite gender.

Never make a crack like, “Well you know you women you are always so emotional.”

Don’t ever say that to a woman!

Don’t ever be negative about these macho men when you are selling to a man. Be very careful. We are proud of our gender. Most women are proud to be women. And most men are proud to be men.

Yes some people are confused and don’t know whether they are a man or a woman, but I am not dealing with people like that. We are dealing with normal people. That is a another matter altogether. And personally I really don’t want to sell to people like that because I feel uncomfortable around them.

But in business they have money and there is a market there. It is a very difficult market to handle because now you are not sure whether you should be a man to the man or a woman to the man or a woman to the woman. It can get a bit confusing.

You need to again use the principle of finding out more about the person and trying to build a bridge. Because if you are a man or a woman selling to somebody who is gay, you can’t build a bridge immediately because you can’t identify with that person.

So you will have to find something in them that you can identify with and thereby build a bridge to them.

Now if you are selling to both sexes, ignore gender as much as possible. Just imagine you are selling to an ‘it’; something that is neither masculine nor feminine.

You are not selling to a man or a woman, you are selling to a person. And then you don’t have to worry about gender at all. All you need to do is be friendly.  Just be friendly and know your temperaments because the temperaments look the same in men and women. The same principles apply.

So temperamental selling is probably the safest ground to always fall back on. But it can be very powerful knowing a little bit about how men and women think. And it is very important sometimes to know especially how a member of the opposite sex thinks if you want to try and sell to such a person.

Gender Differences

Let’s look then at some of the gender differences. How does a man think? How does a woman think? Oh this is a whole big branch of psychology. Every person has their own ideas.

Somebody a long time ago isolated these two. I think it was Carl Jung and he called them the animus and the anima, which was the inner tendency of people to think in masculine ways and to think in feminine ways.

Two terms were originated concerning the way the brain operates. You may have heard the terms left brain and right brain because they discovered that each part of the brain tends to function in a different way.

Men are Left-Brained and Logical

Well it is a little bit deeper than that because a lot of what they attribute to the brain actually comes from the human spirit not from the body at all. But left-brained thinking is said to be typically masculine. Most men are left-brained in their thinking.

What is left-brained thinking? It is very logical straightforward thinking and men thinking logically and they think in a broad scope. Somebody likened it to standing and looking down on the world from a skyscraper and seeing everything out there, broad scope, seeing the end from the beginning, having a skeleton view.

That is quite typical of masculine thinking. The man sees systematically and he sees the whole layout the whole skeleton. He sees the major, what he considers the important aspects.

Women are Right-Brained and Creative

A woman is very different. A woman is right-brained in her thinking.

Now it is not impossible for a man to be right-brained, he just tends to be more naturally left-brained. We can actually, and all of us actually can flow in both, it is just men tend to be more comfortable in left-brained thinking and men tend think in broad scope.

Women tend to think in right-brained thinking and right-brained thinking is more creative and intuitive. Women think in limited scope. Women do not want to stand from the skyscraper and look at the whole world round about.

Women Examine in Detail

A woman sees something right down there on the ground and she wants to get closer to examine it in more detail. And she will spend her whole time examining that one little thing in more detail.

And the man is looking at the broad scope and he sees that thing that she thinks is so important, that is just one little cog in the machine. Yes he notices it, he has seen it, but it is not the most important thing. It is just one of many. The woman can only look at one of those at a time and then she looks at it in absolute detail.

Now that may sound like an analytical because analyticals tend to be that way. They tend to analyze everything and examine everything in detail. But don’t confuse the analytical temperament with femininity. Feminine thinking is not the same as being analytical. The woman simply looks at things in more detail.

Now yes, the analytical, if you give them a brilliant plan or project you want to do they will give you ten reasons why it won’t work because they are thinking ahead, they are planning. See that is analytical thinking.

The woman doesn’t necessarily think ahead analytically but she will think in detail. And when you give her the broad plan, she will say, “Well what color is it going to be? What size? How long will it take?”

She wants a little bit more information because she is looking at it in more detail.

Men Look at the Broad Picture

Now for a man that can get very irritating. And for a woman it can be very irritating when a man doesn’t want to look at the details. All he can look at is the broad scope.

She says, “Well haven’t you thought about these fine details? Is it not important to you?”

When a man looks at a woman he says, “You look beautiful.”

She wants more detail than that. She wants him to say, “You got your eyeliner just perfect today. Man I can see your makeup is really awesome! Your hair you just curled it right.”

She wants detail. That is what means things to her. And when women interact with women they see detail.

You know somebody said that when men see other men they notice simple things like the tie he is wearing and how well polished his shoes are. But when a woman meets another woman she notices everything because women think in detail. They see all the complexities.

You need to understand this when you come to selling to a person. When you are selling to a woman as a man, you may think that she is just being analytical, but no, she is just being a woman. Don’t confuse it.

And when you are selling to a man, you wonder why he is getting bored with all the details. He doesn’t want the details.

He is saying, “Just the facts, Ma’am, just the facts.”

Now that may sound like he is being a driver, but not necessarily. He is just being a man.

So be careful. Men look like they are all driver temperaments. Women look like they are all analytical temperaments but it is not true. Masculinity and femininity, animus, anima are very clear.

And a woman can have all four temperaments and a man can have all four temperaments, but in most women you can see that feminine way of thinking. And in most men you can see that masculine way of thinking.

Chapter 09

Sales Sex Appeal

Chapter 09 – Sales Sex Appeal

Now how do we apply all of this to the sales situation? How do we appeal firstly to a member of the same sex?

Here is where you need to be careful because animus and anima exist in all people. Yes men are mostly animus but they have a bit of anima in them as well. Women are mainly anima but they have a bit of animus in them as well. You see every person is both male and female.

Adam Originally Both Sexes

The Bible says when God made man he made him male and female. Adam was both male and female before God took a part of him out and caused a separation between the male and female tendencies.

God Himself although He is portrayed as masculine, is actually both masculine and feminine.

Now with the Women’s Liberation Movement want to rewrite the bible to make God a she but that is not true. Why then do we major on the he? And why is he and the masculine gender always been the dominant gender? It is because God originally made man to be male and within that masculinity was contained the femininity.

God took the femininity out of the masculinity to separate it. It may be difficult for a woman to accept this but Adam was made first and Eve was made second. And that is why God has always made man to be the dominant one, to be the head in the home, to be the ruler.

And when you come to the sales situation people may not receive this, especially if they are unbelievers, so be careful. Be careful about majoring on this.

Relate to People as They Are

What you need to do is firstly be very strong and confident with the person that you are speaking to. If that person is confident in themselves, you must become like them and you must be strong.

What does it mean if a person is strong and confident? The chances are their animus is very strong. They have a lot of masculine quality in them. The man tends to be the stronger one doesn’t he? But there are a lot of strong women out there too.

So if as a man you are selling to a woman who is strong and confident don’t treat her as this weak little frail woman because she will be offended. Be confident and strong with her and relate to her and where she is at, see?

And if you are a woman selling to a man, he won’t necessarily be this great big strong macho guy. He actually may be a very sensitive man with a lot of creative ability who has a lot of anima in him. And you may actually be able to identify with him more even in your femininity.

So you must examine the person carefully. Don’t assume we treat all men the same and we treat all women the same. It cuts both ways.

Sometimes you may find in that person a mix of the two that almost identifies with your gender. So be strong with a confident person, but when you get a very sensitive person, be gentle with them.

Identify what kind of person you are dealing with and respond because femininity is gentle and submissive. Masculinity is strong and more bold and confident.

Recognize these qualities in a person not by what you see on their body. Don’t assume because this is clearly a man or a woman that is in front of me, that I must always treat them that way.

No, not necessarily. It is not as complicated as the temperaments where you have four to choose from. You only have two to choose from here.

Examine that person and look very carefully to see how much masculinity they are displaying and how much femininity they are displaying.

The Confusion of Gay People

Now if you have somebody who is gay they are totally mixed up and confused and they don’t know what they are. And that is the whole problem with the gay lifestyle. It is a confused lifestyle where the genders are actually cutting at cross purposes.

In a normal person, both animus and anima are there but the one is the stronger one. And it is very clear in the man that the animus is stronger. It is very clear in a woman that the anima is stronger.

When a person begins to confuse them then they don’t know what they are.  A man can be effeminate. A woman can be strong and butch. See what kind of person you are dealing with and identify with them on that basis.

Use Sex Appeal Not Sexuality

Now if you are appealing to the opposite sex in selling, use sex appeal not sexuality. This is a big mistake that so many people make. Do not make erotic statements or comments. Don’t use pick up lines on a woman if you are a man.  If you are a woman don’t try and use that woman’s sex appeal approach to make this man give you whatever you want.

As much as possible avoid personal compliments.

Now if you are dealing with the same sex it is very easy. It is very easy to meet a man and say, “Hey I like your tie, where did you get it?”

“I dig your hairstyle; fully bald.”

If you are a woman, it is easy to compliment another woman. Say, “Man where do you have your hair done? It looks so good.”

“Who do you have put on your makeup? You obviously have a professional.”

You can use comments like that and it is never seen in a negative light. But the moment you try something like that with a member of the opposite sex there are walls and red flags that go up immediately. What is this person trying to do, sell me or seduce me?

Show Your Differences

Do not try to use sexuality to appeal to members of the opposite sex. Rather show your differences. In the genders, opposites appeal.

Yes a man will sit up and take notice at a woman who is beautifully feminine. And a woman will sit up and take notice at a man who is confident in his masculinity. It is a very important part in the sales process, getting attention and interest.

And yes you can use your gender very powerfully that way to get the attention of a member of the opposite sex but that is as far as it goes.

You show your difference and the opposite always appeals. It has an appeal. The person is sometimes more ready to listen to you and receive from you. So by all means, use your gender powerfully in selling in that way. But don’t major on it and don’t depend on it. And don’t use that to get the sale.

Show Your Similarities

And then show your similarities. How can a man and a woman be similar?

They can be similar in temperament. Identify with this man or woman in their temperament. And there are at least three temperaments that you are comfortable in and most people will at least match one of those temperaments.

Even if you are dealing with someone of the opposite temperament, that opposite temperament can swing to one of the side temperaments, which you can also swing to or identify with.

Try and find a common ground, a similarity in the person that you can identify with them on that temperament.

You are going in there as an amiable and you are dealing with this strong macho driver type. That could be man or woman.

Don’t try and identify that way. Realize that this driver at times will be analytical and at times will be expressive. Have a good look and see which one they prefer and are more comfortable in and try and swing them that way.

If they tend to be analytical in their thinking, then zero in on the temperament that you know as an amiable because you can also swing to analytical. And so you can start appealing to the analytical side of that person and that similarity immediately begins to build a bridge.

And then you can identify similar interests and that cuts right across the sexual thing. You can have similar interests. Men and women both like doing writing. They both like doing arts.

They have different hobbies, and very often they cross over and there are similarities. Find something that you can relate to the person that goes outside of the gender that is not gender oriented.

Selling Must Not Meet Your Needs

Most important of all, do not be sidetracked by the need for a relationship. If you have a need for acceptance or recognition, then let it go. Don’t ever try and use your selling to meet your need for acceptance and recognition. This is even more powerful when it comes to a member of the opposite sex.

If you as a man need a woman to affirm you and make you feel good about yourself, don’t try and use the selling situation to meet that need.

If you as a woman need a man to praise you and recognize you, don’t ever use the sales situation to get that need met. You are not in the sales situation to meet your need. You are in the sales situation to meet the needs and the desires of your prospect.

As somebody said, you don’t come across to the prospect that, “I have a need and you are the solution to my problem.”

You always come across with, “You have a need and I have the solution to your problem.”

Now this can be very strong when you are dealing with members of the opposite sex. Meet the needs of the other person, not your own and forget about relationship.

You are out there to sell and suddenly you meet the man of your dreams. You want to drop the whole sales job right now and just go off and get married. It could happen - after this person becomes your client. But you are there to make a sale, and you are selling your product not yourself.

Yes you must always sell yourself too. That is part of the whole sales process. But when it comes to sexuality it will grab a hold of you, it will overrule your feelings and dominate you and you will lose control of the sales situation.

Treat Both Sexes Equally

Finally avoid all sexual bias. Always treat both sexes equally.

Now don’t be arrogant and exult your sex.

Don say, “Well you know, we guys, we are strong and we are tough,” and then you talk about yourself and identify yourself as the man. You have lost it with the women.

By the same token don’t be insecure because of your gender and say, “Well I am just a frail little woman and he is such a big strong man.”

You have lost control of the sale.

Avoid all sexual bias completely. The moment you make a crack, whether it even be as a joke, about your gender, you immediately create a barrier with the person.

You are not there to promote yourself or your sex, you are there to promote your product and get a sale. When you walk out the door with a sale you have accomplished.

You walk out the door and say, “Oh well I never got a sale, but I think she really liked me. You go back to your boss and he says, “How did it go?”

“Well I didn’t get a sale but I think he really liked me. I think he was quite impressed.”

You could lose your job.

Sexuality is part of our nature but it goes much deeper than the body. And actually sexuality even goes as deep as the spirit because we as human beings display sexuality in a very different way than animals do, and animals don’t have a spirit.

Your sexuality presents everything that you are. Don’t be ashamed of your sexuality. Don’t be afraid of being a man or a woman, be who you are. But be ready to communicate with people out there irrespective of their gender.

And learn to be sensitive to the sexes. Maximize your knowledge of human nature. The more you know about human nature, about how people tick, about how they think, about how they operate, the better you will be in this process of selling.

If you ignore human nature, you may get sales but you will never ever reach your full potential.

Know how to use temperaments. Know how to use gender. Know how to appeal to the sexes in a way that will cause people’s hearts to open wide, to receive you, to believe you and above all to buy your product.

Then you will be successful in sales no matter who you are dealing with.

Section 04 - Influence and Persuasion

in Selling

Chapter 10

Overcoming Fear

Section 04 - Influence and Persuasion in Selling

Chapter 10 – Overcoming Fear

We come now to the next Section in this series on Influence and Persuasion in Selling.

Just so we understand what we mean by persuasion, I looked up a couple of dictionary definition and synonyms for the word. According to the Thesaurus in Word, the word persuade can mean:

•         To influence

•         To convince

•         To sway

•         To win over

•         To change somebody’s mind

•         To make somebody believe you

•         To sell something to someone

That last definition fits doesn’t it?

Two definitions on dictionary.com give this for the word persuade:

1.   To prevail on a person to do something as by advising or urging

2.   To induce to believe by appealing to reason or understanding; to convince

Now to persuade somebody it means that you have to influence them in some way. The more influence you can have on a person the greater chance you have of persuading them. And in the business of selling what you are trying to persuade them to do is to buy your product.

But the principles that I will share in this Section apply to all realms of persuasion because actually all persuasion in a sense is selling. When a man proposes to a woman and asks her to become his wife, he is doing a sell job. He is persuading her.

There are a lot of other times he has to persuade her. When a woman wants her husband to buy her something, she has to influence him in order to persuade him.

So the principles I am going to share with you now, they actually apply in many realms of life apart from selling products in business. So even if you are not in business you can maybe benefit from some of this. But my main emphasis will be selling a product from a business point of view.

So how do you start this process of influencing and persuading someone?

Start With Fear

One of the things that is perhaps difficult, especially for believers to deal with, is the use of fear in selling. And as I have looked at the subject, I have at times felt a bit of a conflict. This is because fear seems to be necessary, but sometimes fear seems to be contrary to the way the Word teaches it.

But the truth of the matter is that in order to persuade somebody to do something, the first stage is always to overcome fear. Fear is always involved in selling whether you like it or not.

Actually, even the serpent who did his great sell job on Eve, began with her fear. He said to her, “Did God say you could eat of any fruit in the garden?”

She said, “Yes we can eat anything, but that tree over there, no ways we can’t touch that. God said if we touch that we will die.”

She was afraid to touch the tree. And all that Satan had to do was to prove to her that she didn’t need to be afraid and she bought it.

He said, “Nah, God is not going to hurt you. You are not going to die if you eat that. Don’t you know the real reason God is withholding this from you?”

He took away her fear. And once he took away her fear she said, “You know I have been looking at that tree for so long, if I don’t have to be afraid of the judgment of God, let’s go ahead and try it. I see lots of benefits to taking it.”

Fear in the Scriptures

Now fear is very necessary in the selling process. And just in case you are having a problem as a Christian and wondering if this lines up with the Word, I am going to give you two Scriptures very quickly just to settle this, to do away with your analytical fear of fear.

2 Corinthians 5:11 Paul says:

Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men;

He talks about knowing the terror or the fear of the Lord.

And Jude says in verses 22 and 23:

And with some have compassion, understanding their doubts: And others save with fear, pulling [them] out of the fire;

Okay this is speaking about presenting of the Gospel, which is the greatest product we can ever sell. But the selling principles still apply there.

Fear a Strong Motivator

I want you to see that fear is absolutely necessary in the selling process. Fear is a fact of life and fear actually is the strongest motivator that we can ever have to action.

You will do anything to get rid of fear because fear paralyzes us. Fear robs us and prevents us of entering into everything that we desire. If I could take away from you the fear in your life, you would succeed in everything that you do.

Why are you not successful? It is because you are afraid to try. Why are you not wealthy? Because you are afraid of trying. You are afraid that if you did it, it wouldn’t work.

You are afraid that you will end up in debt, you will end up poor. It is always fear that robs us of everything that we want to accomplish in life.

If I can take away your fear and offer you an opportunity or a method of getting rid of your fear, you will probably be ready to do for me whatever I tell you and give me whatever I want from you in order to overcome that fear.

So the key is if I can find a fear in a prospect and help that prospect overcome that fear, they will buy anything that I offer them. Now it is a very different approach isn’t it?

Up until now we have spoken about creating a desire. And yes, a person will move heaven and earth to get what they want but here is where the problem is.

Once you have presented your product to the person and created the desire, there comes the most difficult part of the sale, the close. And that is where the person begins to balk. That is where they begin to dig their heels in and have doubts and fears.

They say, “Well I would really like to buy it but what happens if I can’t afford it? What happens if we spend this money and we get into trouble?”

Always fear prevents the person from making that final decision.

Now how are we going to overcome this? We have to address the subject of fear. We have to deal with this and help the person overcome that fear.

Identify Their Fears

Now the first thing you need to do before you sell to the person, apart from uncovering their desires, is to identify their fears.

Fear is always based on past experiences. A child is not born with fear. Fear is something that is created as a result of the experiences of life, the bad experiences of life. And because we have had a bad experience, we anticipate that another bad experience may take place and we are afraid in case it happens again.

Fear always goes back to the past. You may think that fear has a future orientation. No that is actually worry, which is another aspect of it.  Fear always has a past orientation.

Fear can also be a result of false or wrong teaching. You were doing fine until somebody told you that what you were doing is dangerous. You were feeling good until the doctor told you that that little pain that you are feeling could be something serious.

Wrong words are one of the major causes of fear in our lives. It can result from wrong teaching, misunderstanding, believing something that is not really true.

Now you can uncover these in a person very quickly. If you have uncovered some of their fears, you have a weapon in your hand that you can use to influence this person and persuade them because that fear has a power over them. And if you can hold that fear in your hand and take control of it, you too will have power over that person.

Creating Fear

What happens if they don’t have a fear?

Then you must create one. That is right, I did say that. You must create a fear. What you must actually do is to put a person inside four walls.

I remember reading once one of the great evangelists of the past. I think it may have been Charles Finney. His whole approach in evangelism, he said, was to put a person in a place where they were caught between four walls and there was no way out.

And then, he said what he would do is he would come and put Jesus inside the walls with them.

You must do exactly the same. You must create a fear. You must bring the person to the place where they have no way out; no solution to their fear.

What are the kinds of things people fear? Fear of loss is one of the greatest. The moment you point out to a person the possibility that they could lose, they want to act quickly to stop that loss.

Up until now they may not have thought about how important your product might be. But once you point out to them what they could lose by not obtaining your product, it can sometimes be a more powerful influence than telling them what they can gain by getting your product.

Now I assume that you have begun by telling them what they can gain. What we are dealing with here is the final influence, the final persuasion. We have built them up, we have created a tension, we have created interest and desire, now we are bringing conviction so that we can come to the close.

This is where people object. This is where people have a problem. This is where people have difficulty making that final decision.

Kinds of Fears

You need to address the possibility of the fear of loss. The other thing that people fear is failure in life. And the third fear we have is the fear of rejection.

There are many other fears, but I think these ones really are some of the major fears that we have in life. Fear of loss, fear of failure and fear of rejection by other people. If a person doesn’t have these fears, you need to start stirring some of them up in them in order to bring them to a close.

Offer Them a Solution

Then once you have put the person in between those four walls, you put your solution in the room with them. This is where not just your product, but what your product can do for them is going to solve their fears and help them to break free and break out and get everything they desire.

You are going to offer them a way to avoid loss. You are going to offer them a way to avoid failure and being rejected.

Who is going to be so foolish when they are stuck inside four walls and you drop down a ladder to climb out, who is going to be so foolish to say, “I don’t want that ladder? I am quite happy in these four walls thank you, I will stay right here.”

No, they are going to jump at the opportunity that you offer them.

You say, “Well this kind of doesn’t sound right as a Christian. Should I be doing this?”

Satan’s Way Versus God’s Way

I want you to compare Satan’s way of doing things with God’s way of doing it. Satan had great success in his sell job that he did on Eve, and the principles remain the same. But I want you to see what his approach was, what he was aiming for.

What Satan was aiming to do was to exalt self. His whole approach with her was to exalt self. The whole approach that Satan uses is to use other people for your own benefit. And Eve even used Adam and dragged him into it.

What Satan wants you to do is to reject authority. And that is really the bottom line of what he wanted, reject the authority of God and do your own thing. And when you do it Satan’s way it leads always to bondage.

Now God’s way is very different. God’s way is the way of love. And the Scripture says that perfect love casts out all fear. God’s way is not the way of taking for yourself but sacrificial giving.

God’s way is not the way of rejecting and rebelling against authority, but of submitting to it. And God’s way always leads to freedom.

Now although you may have brought the person to the place of fear and they are valid fears, the solution that you offer in the end must never be totally selfish and fleshly. You must keep their motive pure.

And your highest appeal to the person is going to be the appeal of love. Not the appeal of what you are going to get out of it but the great satisfaction that comes from being a blessing to others.

How you do that is going to depend on your product, it is going to depend on the sales situation. But if you keep those priorities high in your mind, you will find that as you apply these principles of influence, you will keep in balance and you will keep doing it God’s way.

The end result that you get, hopefully, is going to be persuasion where you will persuade the person to take the action that you desire them to take.

Chapter 11

Influencing the Whole Person

Chapter 11 - Influencing the Whole Person

In order to bring the person to that place where they are fully persuaded, you have to bring an influence upon them. And that influence must influence as much of that person’s being as much as possible.

What Satan did with Eve is he started with her body, stirred up her soul and got access to her spirit. And she fell for it hook, line and sinker.

If you want to influence a person and fully persuade them, you will have to reach not only the body, not only the soul, but the spirit as well. You will have to reach as much as you can of the whole person.

And the greater amount of influence that you can bring on as many parts of the person as possible will increase your chances of finally persuading the person to take the step that you want to take.

I am just going to look very briefly at each of these parts of our being and see if we can understand some of things we need to be looking at in trying to stir up and influence a person in all parts of their being.

It Starts With the Body

So let’s start from the outside, which is actually the first part that you have access to. Here is a person standing in front of you. You don’t have access to their soul, you don’t have access to their spirit, yet you only have their body in front of you. And so you must start with the body.

Well what do we know about the body? We know that the body has three basic functions of nourishment, reproduction and defense and that these natural bodily functions in a person lead to desires.

The Desire for Nourishment

The desire firstly for health and wealth which comes from the bodily function of nourishment. Everybody wants to be healthy and wealthy. Can your product provide a better way of life for this person? If you can make that offer, then you are influencing this part of a person’s being.

Will your product produce wealth or help them to gain possession of things? Everybody wants things. Can we help them to satisfy this need? This need for living a more comfortable life, living a healthier life, living a better life and having everything the heart desires.

You see this is a natural, fleshly thing and there is nothing wrong with it, God created us this way.

If we can offer a person some way of attaining these things, they are ready to listen and you will influence them.

The Desire for Reproduction

Then we come to the bodily desire for reproduction. It doesn’t take long for a young person to come to the place where they realize that what they need in their life is a member of the opposite sex.

You feel half a person. You have to find your other half. There is such a deep desire to get to know members of the opposite sex. It is the desire for companionship.

Can you offer the prospect an opportunity to be more successful with members of the opposite sex? If you can you are beginning to influence them in this part of the bodily function.

Can you help the prospect develop relationships or heal existing relationships? If your product can do that, if you can help the person to do that and you are offering that to them, most people are ready to listen.

How do you get your product to meet these needs? Well that is up to you, because your product is going to be different for each time.

Some products are quite direct. They are actually teaching or instructional products. Other products are for entertainment. Whatever it is, try and find some creative way of meeting that person’s desire using the product or the service that you are offering and you will influence them to make a decision.

The Desire for Safety

The final desire of the body is the desire for safety. The bodily function of defense protects the body against all kinds of harm and attack.

Can you make the prospect feel more secure? Can your product or service or whatever you are offering add a degree of security to the life of the person? Can you offer the person a greater strength or boldness to resist danger or attack in their life?

If you can somehow offer these opportunities to the person, you will influence them to want your product or your service because this is a basic human desire, a basic human need.

The desire for health and wealth, the desire for companionship and the desire for safety are are all things that you will reach, just by reaching the body.

The Soul

Now we go a little bit deeper and we get into the soul. And the soul has mind, emotions, and will.

The Intellect or the Mind

The first part of the soul that you can influence is the intellect, the mind. The mind is like a sponge that just wants to soak up and soak up all that it can, all the time.

The mind cries for information like your body cries for food. The mind wants data, it wants information and input. It wants knowledge.

Can you offer the person knowledge; something they didn’t know before?

The mind requires picture. Can you paint pictures in the person’s mind that include your product or service?

Using Comparisons

The mind likes to compare one thing with another.

And here is a very important approach that you can use in order to really get a person’s mind ticking, and that is to offer them comparisons.

One of the most powerful ways of influencing a person to take a particular product is to compare that product with another one. And usually what you do is you first offer the person the one that is out of their reach.

Now people selling big things like in real estate know that the best way to get a sale is to first go and show the person the house they could never afford. And then afterwards show them a house that is also very good but is so much cheaper and affordable than the previous one, that this house seems an absolute bargain at the price.

If you have two products that are far apart in price, go with the expensive one first.

Then when the person begins to balk, you say, “Okay I have another one that is not quite as good but it really will suit your needs but it is half the price,” and you will get a sale.

Now if you presented the cheap one first, the person will say, “But that seems pretty expensive.”

What can you say then? “Okay I will show you something more expensive.”

You see if the person is only looking for quality now you can. But at the end of the day you should use comparisons. The mind starts weighing up the statistics. It starts looking at the budget.

It thinks, “What can we afford? What can’t we afford? If we bought this we could have enough money over to buy that as well, but if we bought that there is nothing left.”

Get the mind informed. Give the person information that makes them think. You have influenced their mind. You have it ticking.

They are thinking hard and are thinking, “What can we do without to get this thing? Okay what can we get rid of? What debt can we pay off? What can we sell?”

They are starting to find a way in their mind to get what they want. Always make sure that you give the person all the facts that they need because their mind is crying out for those facts.

The Emotions

And then you have to reach the emotions. We have dealt with this before. Usually by the time you have built up the right pictures in the mind, the emotions come automatically.

The important thing is firstly that you must create good feelings. The feelings will be there. You just have to make sure that you get rid of all the bad feelings and get the person feeling good about what you are offering.

And then you need to create desires. If the desire is already there, that is great. All you need to do is fan it to flame and really zero in on it. If the desire is not there then you must create new desires in the person. You must get their emotions fully influenced and stirred up.

I have dealt in previous teachings on how to go about that, so I am not going to major on it now.

The Will

And then finally we have the person’s will, their choice. That is the part we are really aiming for isn’t it?

How do you influence the person’s will? Well it is going to sometimes vary according to their temperament. But one of the first things you must do is to offer some kind of challenge to the will. It is like testing to see if that fish is on the line.

Using Shortage

Here is one of the things that helps influence the will. It is shortage.

You say, “We only have five of these left and you know I have about twenty people actually that have been calling up, want to come and see this. In fact, straight after I am seeing you I have another five people I have appointments with who also want to look at this product.

“So you know I would love to give it to everybody, but you were the first one to contact me, so I am offering you this opportunity first.”

Shortage - It makes the person choose very quickly. Why? It is fear of loss. Use shortage as much as you can if possible.

Now don’t lie and say, “I only have five left” when you have 50. No, integrity and honesty is another subject altogether and I have covered that in a lot of detail in my Seven Pillars of Business.

You must use shortage correctly. I am sure you can find some way of presenting to the person the fact that they must take this opportunity and they must make a decision now.

And so as you have stirred the body of the person, you have influenced their body, you have now influenced their soul as well. You have now reached from the outside into the inner person. But actually it is still not enough.

You need to touch the spirit of the person. Because although the soul is the control tower, the greatest influence in the soul come from the spirit within.

The beauty of the influence of the spirit is that it is subtle. When a person is influenced by their spirit, it just pops up unannounced, unexpected and catches them by surprise.

When you are presenting from the outside they can see you coming, but when you reach into their spirit, something pops up inside of them that they did not expect and that is a far more powerful influence.

The Spirit

How do you reach a person’s spirit? By releasing to them what comes out of your spirit.

How do you do that? I have taught this everywhere. If you have read the Way of Blessing, you know where it is. You use words. Words are the containers of spiritual power.

Now you want to reach the three parts of the spirit, which are intuition, communion and wisdom.

Intuitive Knowledge

How do you reach intuitive knowledge? What you want to create in the person is what is known as a gut feeling, an inner consciousness, an inner knowing, a thought that pops up from deep inside.

A thought that says, “You should get this. You know you should get this.”

It is an inner voice that begins to speak again and again.

Your words will release that spiritual power to touch the spirit of another person and stir up that intuitive part of them. Your words will inspire new ideas to come from the person.

You won’t perhaps even have to tell them what they can do with the product. They will start coming up with their own creative ideas. This idea pops up from deep within.

You see that is kind of what happens when you do brain storming. When you get a bunch of people together and one person makes a suggestion, those words go out to the hearers. The person hears it and that thought triggers within them a new idea of something they hadn’t thought of before.

Where did that come from? It didn’t come from the mind. It came from the spirit because language is a spiritual thing. And only through language can we accomplish this, through words.

So what you want to do is to bombard this person with the right words. Well which words do you use? That is a whole teaching by itself. We will be looking at it in more detail. We will look at how to use words in writing and to use words in speech. The words are very important.

But what you want to accomplish is for your words to go beyond their ears, to go deep down and sink into their spirit.

Communion

The other part of the person’s spirit that you need to reach is the spiritual function of communion. Communion allows two human beings to interact with each other on a social or fellowship level.

You may not realize how important and how powerful this influence is. But every one of us, whether we care to admit it or not, are affected by what other people think.

“What does she think of me?”

“I wonder what his impression is of me.”

“Will he accept me?”

“Does she think I am stupid?”

We are concerned about what others think. And we want to be part of the crowd. People don’t like to stand out.

So don’t come and offer your product to a person and say, “If you do this you will be different to everybody else in the world.”

Most people will actually not respond very well to that. And it is a known fact in selling that if you can appeal to the person by giving them social proof that everybody else out there is buying this product, suddenly everybody wants one.

“Do you know that everybody in this community has already bought one of these? You actually are the only one who doesn’t have it.”

You might think that a person will be more motivated to say, “Well I am the only one who bought it. Nobody else has got one.”

Yes that is the shortage thing. That is a different appeal altogether. The shortage thing means, “I have one, but nobody else can get one.”

That is different. But if you are offering many of these products out there, you want to reach as many people as possible.

And so the appeal that you must give must be, “Are you going to be left out? Are you going to be all on your own, a little loner? Or are you going to do what everybody else does?”

I don’t know about you but if I buy a book on Amazon, the first place I look is the reviews. And if most of the reviews are good I am sold. It is very important that you have some kind of reference to what other people are doing.

You can offer a person proof by saying, “We have these customers that have bought this” or, “Everybody has bought it.”

But even more powerful is, “Did you know that Arnold Schwarzenegger has one of these?”

“What? That famous actor and Governor?”

“Yes, he was one of the first to buy it. He thinks it is awesome.”

“Oh well maybe I should be getting one of these.”

“The president doesn’t want anybody to know, but I want to tell you that he has bought one of these.”

“No!”

“I am telling you. I can show you the sales slip.”

Use Famous People

You can’t get away from it. People are affected by what other people think. And everybody has their superheroes and their sports stars.

Why do you think that in business they always take these people and use them to promote their products? Because as soon as somebody important is using it or wants it, everybody else wants to follow.

So who do you have that has bought your product that is important? If you can get an endorsement from somebody who has a reputation or is famous, you will influence the person.

If you can prove that this is something that everybody else is buying, that it is part of the status quo group, everybody wants to be part of the status quo.

You know everybody wants to be like the famous person. We are like cannibals. You know cannibals eat a person’s meat because they want to get the strengths the person had. And we are kind of like spiritual cannibals. We see somebody who has all the qualities we want and we want to grab hold of them.

Well you know if that is what people are going to do, let us offer them something to grab hold of. Let’s use it to influence them to purchase what we are offering.

Wisdom

And then the spiritual function of wisdom allows a person to have a future orientation. Every single person in this life needs hope for the future. We all need a goal to aim for and a hope.

We need a hope that one day I won’t be single anymore; a hope that one day I won’t be poor anymore; a hope that one day I can go and live somewhere else or drive this kind of car.

Whatever it is, there must be the hope that a person’s aspirations can be reached. And if a person doesn’t have these aspirations, it is your job to create those aspirations.

How many famous singing stars today had somebody who said to them one day, “Do you know you have a pretty good voice. Have you ever thought of becoming a singer?”

I have heard of famous singers who just sing the pub when they have had a few beers and somebody said, “Do you know you have a good voice?”

“Oh no, I just sing when I am drunk.”

“You should do some recordings. You should go on a stage.”

“I never thought about that before. Maybe I will give it a try.” And the guy becomes famous.

Everybody says, “Wow, where did you learn to sing like that?”

“Well in the pub.”

Create aspirations in your prospects. Give them a goal to aim for. Give them a hope for the future. Stir up that part of their spirit.

If you can do this, you have reached the body and you have influenced it. You have reached the soul and you have influenced it. And you have reached their spirit and you have influenced that as well.

If you can influence every single part of the person’s being, I want to tell you that persuasion is an automatic result. It is automatic.

So in conclusion, to persuade people to do business with you, what do you have to do? You have to influence them. How do you influence them? You do it in these stages:

•         You either identify or you create a fear

•         You offer to remove that fear

•         You appeal to every single part of the person

The more influence that you place upon them, the better opportunity you will have to persuade them.

Apply this to your sales and you will be successful every time.

Section 05 - Making Sales Calls

Chapter 12

Selling is Not Easy

Section 05 - Making Sales Calls

Chapter 12 – Selling is Not Easy

Sales personnel are always the highest paid of all staff in a business. Why is this? I will tell you why, because not many people have what it takes to make sales calls.

Now most of us are able to sell. Just about everything you accomplished in life came as a result of selling yourself, convincing, persuading somebody else and some of us are better at it than others. But all of us have some ability to sell.

And if you were given an opportunity, if you were given somebody standing in front of you saying, “I’m interested in your product, please sell it to me,” most of us would be able to get a sale to some degree.

But not many people can handle the pressure that is involved in calling on new prospects and on finding new prospects and people to sell to. That is the most difficult part of selling.

That is why salespeople are always paid the most. Because anyone who has the ability or the courage to go out and make sales calls deserves to be paid more money.

Introduction to Selling

I learned this one the hard way and I would like to share with you some of my own sales experiences and some of the principles that I learned from making sales calls. And my exposure came in that awesome or awful industry known as life assurance.

I was in a job that I didn’t like, that didn’t pay very much money. There was really not much else that was available to me at that time. And most of us are in this kind of situation, plodding along in a job that just gets you enough to barely live, and you wish you could do something else.

Then one day somebody knocked on my door and offered me life assurance. Well I could barely afford to pay the bills or put food on the table let alone buy life assurance. So I was not a very good prospect and he didn’t get a sale that night.

But he said to me, “Have you ever thought of selling life assurance?”

No, I had never thought of selling life assurance. That is the last thing that I had ever thought of doing.

But he told me what the possibilities were, the kind of money I could make, the freedom that I would have. He started to sell me on the idea of selling life assurance. And actually, the only sale he got that night actually was persuading me to seriously consider selling life assurance.

And so he set up an opportunity for me to go and speak to his boss and to have an interview to see whether I would like to sell life assurance.

I thought, “Hey I have nothing to lose. It couldn’t be much worse than what I am doing right now and there are lots of possibilities. I don’t know if I could sell but hey, let’s give it a try.”

Pre-Employment Project

So I went for the interview and I liked the pay. I liked the company. I even liked the guy who was interviewing me.

In fact he got me so excited about the idea of selling life assurance I thought, “Man this would be awesome! But could I sell?”

And so I said to him, “Look I really love this whole thing. From what you told me I would love to sell life assurance, but I don’t know if I could go and contact people for the first time and speak to them and try to sell them life assurance. I am not sure if I could do this.”

He said, “Okay, before I offer you the job, here is a project for you to do. I want you to go and do this and report back to me and then I will decide whether we are going to employ you in this job or not.”

He said, “I would like you to go through the phone book and randomly pick out ten names. Phone these people up and tell them that you are doing a survey on life assurance and you would like to just come and ask them a few questions and please could they have the time just to answer a few questions, a survey on life assurance.”

He said, “And then go and ask them these questions.”

Have you ever tried that? You just pick a name out of a telephone directory, call the person up and try not to sell them life assurance.

You say, “I would like to just come and see you, if you can spare a few minutes of your time to just answer a few questions on a survey that I am doing.”

It seemed very unthreatening. Well I managed to get three. I can’t remember how many people I called but it wasn’t ten. It was difficult! What was even more difficult was going out at night, to go and find this person’s address and to go and knock on their door and face them for the first time.

“Hi, my name is Les Crause. I called you the other night about an interview.”

“Yeah, but I’m busy. Sorry I can’t see you tonight.”

But he was so nice on the phone. I thought he was going to speak to me. Well that was probably before he spoke to his wife.

Well I managed to see a couple of people. I remember the one guy came to the door and said, “Yes, yes, I remember you,” and I thought he would invite me in.

Not a chance! He stood there in the door and I had to stand there on his doorstep and try and talk. Well I did a pretty good sell job and I found out I could actually sell if I could get somebody to listen to me.

By the time I was finished the guy said, “I’m very interested. Do you have you a business card that you could leave with me?”

I said, “I haven’t even got the job yet, how could I give you a business card? I just came to do a survey because I am thinking of selling life assurance and I just want to see what people think about it.”

So I had mixed feelings when I went back to my future boss to share with him some of my experiences.

But I felt convinced that I could sell at least because here was a complete stranger and I didn’t even know anything about life assurance yet. But at least I interested him in it enough that he wanted to know more in the future.

So I figured, “Yeah I think I could sell and knock on doors. While it is difficult, I could live with it I suppose if that is what I am going to do.”

Training 101

And so I got the job and then began sales training 101. My new sales manager took me out to train me how to sell life assurance and this was his method. You drive out at night into a community, you park your car on the corner and you get out.

You walk down the street and you go into each house one at a time, knock on the doors and say, “Hi, my name is Les Crause and I am from XYZ Insurance Company. I was wondering if I could speak to you about your insurance portfolio.”

“No thanks, I already have life insurance.”

“I have an agent.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Go away.”

Well some people were nice. Some were not so nice, but very few said, “I’m interested.”

Eventually we managed to get in to somebody who said, “Okay I will give you a bit of time” and we could talk to the person and learn a little bit.

Eventually after many no’s, here was somebody who was at least interested. And even if they were interested that did not mean that they were going to buy. But at least we got somebody who agreed to the interview. But not many people.

I found out that there were very little results with cold calling. But eventually there were results.

And so that was my sales training. “Okay off you go now, go and get some sales.”

So while everybody else sat down at night in front of their TV to chill out for the day and relax and watch a movie, I was out there in the cold, all by myself, parking my car on a dark street corner and plucking up the courage to go and knock on somebody’s door, to ask them if I could sell them something they didn’t want.

It was not easy let me tell you. And the only thing that kept me going was the fact that my family was at home and they needed food. There were bills to be paid. And if I didn’t get any sales, we wouldn’t eat. It is a very difficult thing to be in sales.

Three Doors

Somebody said there are three doors that every sales person has to go through in order to make a sale. The first one is your house door, because if you don’t get out there and see people you are not going to make sales.

And when you finally get out there and get in your car, you find yourself driving around and around the block, trying to pluck up enough courage to get out of the car. And so the second door that you have to get out of is your car door.

And then once you have out of your car door, there is the final most difficult door of all and that is the door to the person’s home or to the person’s office, whoever you are going to go and see to sell.

Those are three pains that you have to suffer. It is not an easy job to be in sales. That is why they pay such big money for it.

I tried for a while and my nerves took a terrific stress and I got very few sales, and I wondered whether I ever was going to hack it in this sales business.

Finding Orphan Policy Holders

And then somebody suggested something to me, a different approach, probably my sales manager at that time.

He said, “In this company we have a lot of people who have bought policies with us in the past but their original agent is no longer with us, he has left.”

He said, “We call these orphan policy holders. They are like orphans that don’t have a parent. They have no regular agent to look after them. Go through our records and look up all our policy holders that don’t have an agent that is currently with the company and you are welcome to go and contact them and offer to be their agent, to go and follow up.”

And so I sat going through these drawers and drawers of cards of past policy holders, to look them up, see what policy they bought from us last, and see when last they were called on. It was all the sales records.

I would call them up and say, “Hi, my name is Les. I am from such-and-such an insurance company. You bought a policy with us a long time ago and I see that your agent is no longer with us.

“I would like to come and see you to introduce myself to you. And I would like to be there to help you as your future agent, to review your portfolio and see what your needs are and see if anything has changed.”

And you know what, suddenly people started to say, “Sure, come on over!” They were ready to listen.

They weren’t saying, “Not another insurance salesman. Go away. I have enough insurance. Leave me alone!”

They were saying, “Wow, here is somebody who is actually interested in me. Sure come on over.

Don’t Forget Existing Customers

So one of the first principles I found that helps you to find new customers and to get new sales is to always resell your existing customers. Your existing customers already believe in your company and in your product. And actually, they appreciate the attention.

The biggest mistake that we make so often in business is that we are so keen to get new customers that we neglect and don’t take care of the customers we already have.

And so I found when I approached these orphan policyholders, nobody had ever showed any interest in them since they first bought. And they were happy to have somebody now come back and show interest.

They had been faithfully paying their policy all these years, all this time, and nobody had ever come back to resell them. A lot of the time, in fact most of the time, the life insurance that they had is no longer enough and suitable, because they had grown since then, they had greater needs.

And so it was very easy to come in and say, “Let me look at all your policies.”

Sometimes however because somebody from the company had not kept in touch with them, another company had come in and sold them other policies and they now had somebody who did take care of them.

They would say, “Well no, I no longer want to deal with your company because you never took care of me. I have another agent who is really good with another company and he has looked after me, and I would rather do business with him thank you.”

It is very important to take care of your existing customers.

Call Resistance

Over time as I began to see more and more people, had less people who were saying no to me all the time, I developed a little bit more confidence in going and knocking on doors and going to see people. I found that my resistance to calls was better.

Now there is a term they use in sales it is called ‘call resistance’. And if you have a very high call resistance, it means that you can only take so many no’s before you are ready to collapse in a heap.

it depends on your personality and on your experiences in life, but all of us we are sensitive creatures. We are human and we don’t like people to reject us. We can only handle so many rejections.

And if you are going out in an evening to make sales calls and you have too many no’s and rejections in a row you have to stop and go home, even if there haven’t been sales.

If you push through and face an additional emotional stress, eventually it will overwhelm you and the next day when you wake up you will want to cover your face with a pillow and say, “I’m not going out there today, I can’t take it.”

Of course employers don’t understand that very often and they say, “I’m paying you money to get sales, go and sell, get out there.”

The pressure that comes on a salesperson can drive them mad and eventually destroy their lives completely. You can only take so much of that kind of rejection.

But if you work on it a little bit at a time, you will find after a while your call resistance goes down and you can handle more rejections and more no’s then you could before.

Believe in Your Product

How do you overcome this? Firstly you need to learn to believe in your product.

If you don’t really believe in what you are offering people, when they say no, you are not surprised because you think to yourself, “Well you know I’m not surprised that they are saying no. I would probably say no also if somebody came to try and sell me life assurance.”

If you don’t believe in your product, you are not very convincing when you come across to the person. You are really only selling because you need money to survive. You are not selling because you believe that your product is the most wonderful thing that you could offer to anybody and the whole world should have one of these.

If you don’t believe that, you shouldn’t be in sales.

Fortunately most salespeople are there because they need the money and it is a job, and it is an income. And it is not that they believe in the product. Most of the time they wouldn’t buy what they are selling to everybody else.

I learned in life assurance to go and buy a few policies myself so that I could believe in what I was selling. Because if I didn’t believe in what I was selling, how could I honestly, especially as a believer, impose this on somebody else?

How could I convincingly tell this person, “You should buy this, but quite honestly if I had the money I wouldn’t buy it myself.”?

Care About Your Customers

And then you had better care about the other person that you are selling to. If you don’t care about this person, how can you sell them convincingly?

If you believe that your product is good and if you care enough to offer this person a product to meet their needs and to bless them in some way, it changes your whole demeanor, your whole spirit.

And you know people can pick it up. People can sense when you are just trying to push for the sale and when you are trying to actually minister to them.

You see selling is a ministry. And especially in this whole fivefold business calling, we need to realize that even in business we are doing a kind of a ministry. We are actually meeting people’s needs when we sell them our product.

I found as I learned to believe in my product it made a difference. I kind of believed in life assurance, but I still had all these negative impressions in my mind of pushy sales reps.

I remember the one day speaking with a fellow agent and he just put it in place for me.

He said, “You know when I go out at night to see the customer I don’t park my car around the corner. I pull into his driveway, I put my lights on bright and I shine it right on his window to let him know I am coming you see because I am very proud to be an insurance agent. When I go there, I am very proud to present him a product that his family needs.

“And when I have made a sale and I go out there that night and I know that if that man should die tonight his wife and children are going to be taken care of. It makes me feel good inside because I have done them a good service.”

Wow, I never thought about it that way before! It changed my whole approach. It changed my whole attitude to what I was selling.

Selling With Faith, Hope and Love

You have to have that attitude. And especially as a believer, you should be able to sell in faith, hope and love. We have preached faith, hope and love in every other kind of ministry, but what about faith, hope and love in selling?

Do you have faith in your product? Do you love this person enough to sell them what really suits them, not what suits you?

Here is this person who just needs the smaller model of what you have, but no we want to sell him the big one so we can get more money. The guy can’t afford it. His family doesn’t need it. His house is too small. Why are we trying to sell him the big product when it doesn’t suit him?

We are not trying to match the person’s needs we are trying to match our pocket. It is a wrong approach. There is not faith hope or love in our selling. How can we expect God to bless it?

Overcoming My Fear

I did find after a while I developed a confidence and no longer did I fear the rejection and the pain of knocking on somebody’s door.

You know it is the same as standing up and speaking. Many people fear public speaking more than death. And for all of us the first time you stood up to speak in front of a public group your legs were shaking and your knees were knocking. But do it often enough and eventually you are so confident that you can do it in front of any crowd it doesn’t really matter.

I didn’t realize how much I was developing an ability to overcome this fear. This was until the one day when I went to go see a prospect who happened to be a relative of my brother-in-law at that time.

My brother-in-law, he was a star motorcar salesman. He was top salesman for his company, worked his way up into management and he was a hotshot salesman, supposedly. And it was his relative that he was going to introduce me to.

And so we went out and he was going to introduce me to this couple so I could speak to them about their life assurance needs. And when we got to this block of flats, apartments where they lived, he suddenly realized he forgot what number they were in.

Here is this whole building and which apartment do these people live in? He couldn’t remember. What were we going to do now?

I said, “That’s okay. We will start at the bottom and knock on every door until we find them.”

I was used to doing that kind of thing.

I said, “Hey, here is an opportunity. Maybe I will get some other sales.”

I went boldly to the first door to knock on it and I thought, “Well eventually we will find which one they are in.”

Then I turned to see if he was standing next to me and he was hiding around the corner. He was a coward! Mister Hotshot star motor salesman. It is easy to sell motor cars when you have the car on the display and people come in and review your car and all you have to do is persuade them. But he didn’t have the courage to go and break ice with new people.

Internet Versus Live Sales

You see there are different kinds of sales. And there are different ways of selling. And I am going to be dealing with that in a whole lot of detail as we go on in this teaching. And we are going to look at different kinds of selling. We are going to look at different temperaments in selling and look at the Internet as well as live selling.

But right now I am dealing with general sales principles and especially the idea of making sales calls on live people. And when you are selling to a live person there is always two stages.

Actually even on the Internet, there are always two stages. You first have to get the person’s attention enough to the point where they are ready to listen to you make your sales pitch. We dealt with that in Section 1 on the keys and the steps that we need to take.

Sell the Interview First

If you are going to see a person live, the first thing you must sell is the interview. You don’t call a person on the phone and say, “Hi I’m Les Crause. I’m from this Insurance company and I would like to sell you insurance.”

No, you don’t say that. You say, “Hi my name is Les and I would like to come and meet you and introduce myself to you and set up a relationship with you and see if perhaps maybe we can do business in the future.”

He is not feeling threatened. We are selling an interview. Once you have sold the interview then in the interview you do your sales pitch and climb the stairs of selling.

Now there are different ways of getting the interview, but the best way is to get a lead first.

You can say, “Hi my name is Les. I was speaking to John Doe the other day and your name came up in the conversation. And he thought you might really be interested in meeting me and perhaps I may be able to help do something for you like I did for him.”

“Well sure come on over.”

“When can I see you? What time will suit you? Can I see you at your work or at home?”

You sell the interview. Don’t get in there and try and do the close, sell the interview first.

Offer Something for Free

Now sometimes it helps to offer a freebie. I remember my brother was selling Kirby vacuum cleaners.

What they would do is advertise and say, “We will clean your carpet for free. Your lounge carpet totally vacuumed and cleaned perfectly free of charge. Just call one of our reps and we will come and do it for you.”

Well the whole idea of course was to clean their carpet and show them what the Kirby vacuum cleaner could do. Then they would do the sales pitch and sell them a vacuum cleaner.

Chapter 13

Calculate Sales Ratios

Chapter 13 – Calculate Sales Ratios

There are ways of getting the interview. Sell that first. Don’t try to sell your product yet. And I am going to get to a little more detail on the importance of getting leads and introductions at the end of this teaching.

But first I want to look at a very important part of selling. And that is learning to calculate sales ratios.

Keep Accurate Records

The most important thing in sales, which unfortunately many people fail to do, is to keep accurate records of your sales calls and results. And if you do that, you can calculate how effective you are being in your selling.

In the life assurance side, this is vital.  What I learned to do was to keep a record of exactly which sales calls I had made.

Firstly, how many people did I contact in the last week? That may be phoning them up, knocking on their doors or whichever approach I took. How many people did I actually approach for the last week?

Next, how many people did I actually get to interview and see and do my sales presentation to in the last week?

And then, how many sales did I make in the last week and how much money, commission did I make in the last week? And so you can spread it over a week, over a month, over six months. The longer period you can do the better because then it tends to average out.

Tracking Your Results

So what you do is you calculate the results of your interview. You calculate the results of your closing. How many of the people that I actually interviewed bought?

Maybe I contacted twenty people and out of that, three people agreed to see me. And out of every three people I saw, one of them bought. Now I have some figures that I can play with.

Over a period of time you will find that the average tends to settle in and become pretty constant for your sales ability. And I could predict exactly that if I were to make x number of calls per day I would get y number of interviews and I would get z number of sales.

On average, the average sales value, spread over a couple of months was that amount of money. And I could actually calculate exactly what my pay would be based on how many people I called on.

Using the Law of Averages

Now this only works if you are consistent. It is called the law of averages and it only works with large consistent numbers. You do not look at what your sales results were and aim for results. What you do is you compare the number of calls that you made with your results. You count the calls first.

Then you decide how many calls you will make. And you split it right down to a daily basis and that is the number of calls that you make every single day.

And by the law of averages you can actually calculate that if you make so many calls per day you will get so many interviews, you will get so many sales and you will make so much money.

If you want to increase your income, you don’t start thinking about how you can sell better, you start thinking about how much you should increase your calls. Because if you increase your calls you will increase your interviews, you will increase your sales, you will increase your money.

Now you can work on the others as well but the easiest place to start is with the sales calls.

A Clever Idea

I had one sales rep who told me a story that was really brilliant.

He said, “What I used to do in my early years of selling is I used to have ten buttons. And I put these ten buttons in my left pocket and those buttons were the number of calls that I was going to make.

“And every time I finished a call I would take a button out of my left pocket and I would put it into my right pocket, until all of the buttons were across. Then I would go home because those were my calls for the day. And I learned that I could make so much money out of each button.”

He said, “If I made ten calls per day, on average, this is the amount of money that I would make out of those ten calls. And so I was very bold and I would go and see somebody.”

He would do the presentation, and when the presentation was over if the person said, “No I’m not interested,” he would say, “Thank you very much for your time, and thank you that I have now just earned $50.”

The guy would say, “But I never bought.”

He said, “No, but I worked out that for every single person that I see and present my sales call to, on average it is worth $50. So I made $50 now whether you bought or not.”

He said, “All I needed to do was get my ten buttons across every day and I was guaranteed an income.”

Now when you break it down that way it becomes a little simpler because you only have one goal. Your goal is not to try to make sales. Your goal is to make the calls.

Yes you can improve your closing ratio, you can improve your ability to sell the interview in those first calls and get more interviews per number of calls. And if you do that that will eventually reflect in your increased income.

And amongst those that you do actually go to see, you can improve your sales technique and close more of the people that you are seeing. And amongst those that you close, you can push them for higher sales amounts and thereby increase.

So on each of these stages you can increase your capability, but the easiest one that is totally under your control, that you can make a choice of on a daily basis is how many calls you will make.

When it comes to selling on the Internet and some other direct sales there were other factors involved. We will deal with those in a different way and I will show you the difference between those selling methods.

But at the end of the day, if you want to get sales you must get calls to people and offer them your product. Without the calls, there will be no sales.

Making sales calls is the foundation of selling success.

Chapter 14

How Different Temperaments Sell

Chapter 14 – How Different Temperaments Sell

Now the temperaments come into this as they always do. I always love to bring the temperaments in. And I want to show you the difference between sales people of different temperaments.

The Expressive

The expressive temperament thrives on excitement and challenges. The expressive makes the best salesperson of all.

Expressives are almost naturally sales people. And if you are going to employ somebody in sales in your business, look first for an expressive because an expressive is easier to train up and motivate and get out into the sales field.

Expressives have the boldness to take a lot of no’s and they have the ability when they get  in the sales to so motivate and excite people and challenge them that they will get the sale. You can motivate an expressive by challenging the person to get more sales, to reach higher levels, to become the top salesperson in the company.

These things motivate expressives. I will guarantee you go to any company and find out who the top seller is and the chances are that person will be an expressive.

Analyticals

Analyticals are the complete opposite. An analytical cannot make quick decisions. Talk about how long it takes to get out those three doors. It took the analytical all day to get out of the house door. Then they will ride around the block all night without getting out of the car door.

The analytical needs deadlines. You have to tell the analytical, he has got to get it done and done by such and such a time. An analytical is the worst salesperson that you can possibly have. And yet they have a role to play after the sale.

If you are going to employ a salesperson who is an analytical, don’t employ them in live sales. Analyticals thrive in Internet sales where they sell using writing and words. We will be looking at that in more detail when we look at internet marketing.

You will find that most of the successful marketers and businesses online actually have an analytical orientation, because the analytical expresses himself very well in writing. The analytical cannot confront or face real live people and make decisions on the spot.

An analytical can write and think about it for a week and then write back what he thought. If you are going to employ somebody in live selling to real people, don’t employ an analytical if you can help it.

Amiables

Now we have the amiables.

The amiable is the nice guy who wins everybody over. But the amiable has no courage whatsoever and cannot face rejection. Give an amiable a prospect who is ready to buy and the amiable will win him over and convince him to buy.

But don’t tell the amiable to go out and find people to sell to because the amiable can take a few no’s and that is it. Amiables and analyticals are actually both that way, but the amiable especially.

The amiable wants people to like her or him. The analytical and the amiable both are non-assertive people. But the amiable especially wants to spend time being accepted by people and loved by them.

If you want your amiable to sell, get somebody else to set up the interviews. Once the person is ready to buy, the amiable will walk in and win them over.

Now the amiable is able to find prospects in a different way by meeting people, by connecting with people, by developing contacts and so the amiable is actually very good at getting people to refer you to his friends.

We will look at that next. But when it comes to face-to-face confrontation and prospecting and getting you interviews the amiable is very weak.

Drivers

Now the driver needs very little motivation because the driver does not work on emotion. The driver works on very strong assertion. Without emotion, the driver makes a decision to do something and does it. The driver has very low call resistance. You can say no to a driver twenty times and he doesn’t care.

So the driver makes the best prospector but when it comes to selling the driver don’t care. He is going to push you to make the sale because he wants the sale and you had better do it now and he will force you to do it, whether you want it, whether you need it, it doesn’t matter. He ruffles people up the wrong way.

Very often a person will buy from the driver and then cancel it afterwards. Once he has gone they have the courage. They don’t have the courage to say no while she is there.

Doesn’t it make you tremble when you think of this dominating woman, or dominating man who is pushing you and telling you what to do? He or she is a typical manager type.

They make great prospectors. They take all the resistance, they take all the no’s and smash right through. They take all the objections and just ignore them as though they aren’t there.

Work as a Sales Team

Are you beginning to see that each temperament has different capabilities in selling? And actually, the key is to work as a team. And I will be dealing with that in detail later as we look at sales teams.  Don’t expect one person to be able to do everything.

If you are going to employ sales staff in confrontational face-to-face selling, look first for an expressive. Or perhaps you can find a driver who is capable of being expressive. But it will have to be somebody who is assertive.

Chapter 15

Introduction to Marketing

Chapter 15 – Introduction to Marketing

Let’s look finally at how we should approach our selling and our marketing.

Interruption or Permission Marketing

Now there was a book written by Seth Godin in which he taught a principle, which he called ‘Interruption Marketing’ versus ‘Permission Marketing’. It is very good reading. It is a very good principle which is being taught and understood out there in the sales environment.

What Seth taught was that most of the time we are interrupted by sales people who impose on our time.

You are watching a movie on TV and they interrupt the movie to give these advertisements. You are sitting at home enjoying a hot cup of coffee, some sales person knocks on the door to interrupt you, and it irritates us.

He suggests that we first get people’s permission. Then once we have people’s permission we can approach them to offer them what they invited us to offer them.

Unfortunately before you can get somebody’s permission you will probably have to interrupt them in order to meet them. So it is very difficult to do permission marketing without interruption marketing.

Introduction Marketing

Now I would like to go beyond permission marketing and introduce a new term which I would like to call ‘Introduction Marketing’.

Finding prospects is always the hardest thing but everyone out there is a prospect unless you are selling something that is only for one niche. If you are selling something that is only for men, then every man out there is a prospect. If you are selling only for women, then every woman out there is a prospect.

If you are selling only for young people or old people then you have to see that group. But by and large, every person out there that you meet is a prospect for your product.

Now how are you going to sell unless you meet new people? Because you have sold to the people you know and you have sold, or try to sell to the people that you have met. If you are to increase your sales, you need to meet new people.

Now how do you get to meet new people? You do not get it sitting at home and hoping that somebody will come and knock on your door.

Well you might get a salesperson coming to knock on your door and you could sell them something instead. It could happen. But trust me you are not going to get very wealthy or pay your bills on the sales that are going to come to you that way.

You have to get out and meet new people. How do you meet new people? I want you to think about it.

How many new people did you meet in the last month? How many people did you meet in the last week, in the last day? How many new people did you meet in the last year?

If you are not meeting new people all the time, you will never succeed in selling or in business because you have to increase your market all the time.

So how do you get to meet new people? The most powerful way to meet new people is to be introduced to them by somebody else. Introduction marketing is the most powerful way of selling. You must start with the people you know - your relatives, your friends, your contacts.

Circle of Influence

Every single person that you know has what we call a circle of influence; a certain number of people that they know. If you were to sit down now and write down the names of everybody that you know fairly well, imagine your name is in the middle and there is this circle all around you of people that you know. That is your circle of influence.

They are people who if you were to go to them and say, “Do you know Les Crause?” they will say, “Oh yes, I know him.”

Now each of those people has their own circle of influence, their own group of family, friends, and contacts. They are people that they know who if you were to contact them would know that person.

So what you must do is start with your circle and widen it, because as you meet somebody new from one of the people on your circle, that other person now comes into your circle. And your circle now gets bigger and bigger and bigger. You have to widen your circle of influence.

How will you do that? Ask somebody in your circle to introduce you to somebody in their circle. And unless they introduce you, you don’t have an opportunity to meet them.

Now you may be able to go and introduce yourself to that person using the one that you do know as a contact.

And so it is very easy to approach somebody and say, “Hi, my name is Les and I believe that you know so and so?”

“Yes I know him. He is a good friend of mine.”

“Well actually he is a good friend of mine as well.”

Or, “Actually he is my brother-in-law.”

Or, “He is a business associate.”

Whatever it is you have something in common. People will more easily open their hearts to you and say, “Oh, so how is old Peter doing? I haven’t heard from him in ages.”

You have a point of contact and immediately people open their hearts. So start that way to pick up your leads.

Referrals from Satisfied Customers

And then the best place to get introductions is after you have offered good service and done business with somebody and they are satisfied.

You need to get referrals and introductions from your existing customers.

Now if you don’t ask for it you are not going to get it. Your customer is not going to say, “Man I am so thrilled with your product! I would like to introduce you to all my friends.”

They don’t do that unless you ask them.

You must say, “So tell me, do you have any friends that would really enjoy what you just got? I would like to go and offer them a special, just because of you.”

I would like to go to them and say, “I just sold to this person and I told them that I would do a special deal, a special offer for his friends, or her friends. And I asked her who she knows and she mentioned your name.”

“He said that you would probably really like this as well so I thought I would call you and find out if I can help you as well?”

People will listen. But if you don’t ask for those referrals, or if you don’t ask for those leads you won’t get them.

The Right Way to Ask for Leads

Now how do you ask for the leads?

“Well you know, sales are really bad this month and I really need to get some more sales. Do you have anybody you could refer me to?”

People don’t care about your needs. You have to motivate them. Motivate people to tell their friends.

Say, “Do you have any friends that could also benefit from this? Why don’t you go and tell them about this new thing that you just got. Why don’t you invite them over and show it to them and get them excited? I would really like to help your friends like I helped you.”

You see that is a good motivation.

And then always show appreciation. Always give feedback if somebody has referred you. If you do go to a person and you have followed up a lead, always go back to the person that you got the lead from.

Say to them, “By the way I called your friend the other day and he actually was really open and is pretty keen on the other model of what I sold you. I got a good sale from it.

“I really want to thank you for referring me. And I really appreciate it. And as a token of my appreciation I would like to give you a little gift.”

You are about to get some new leads! You are about to get some more referrals to other friends. Your circle of influence is growing and getting bigger.

New Customers Best for Introductions

Now who are the best people to ask for introductions? They are the new customers.

Who is the best evangelist? It is the new convert; the person who just got saved wants to tell all his friends. She wants to go out and tell the world that she has found the Lord. That is always your best one to get new leads from.

And so the new customer who is excited about your product, who has just bought it now and really thinks it is wonderful, that is the best person to ask for introductions.

Your best advertisement is a satisfied customer.

Remember Your Old Customers

Unfortunately a lot of the time if you were to go to your old customers and ask them for introductions and referrals, you will get some negatives.

You know why? It is because you didn’t take care of your old customers. You were so interested in getting the new sale that as soon as you got the sale that person is on the shelf and you ignored them and neglected them.

If you will keep your old customers happy and if you will offer them some kind of incentive; if you go back to them again and say, “We have just brought out a new model of what you bought and we are having a special offer going right now. And I would like to offer your friends an opportunity.

“And I’ll tell you what I am going to do for you. I am going to give you something extra as a little gift for every single person that you refer to us.”

It may not cost you a lot to give just a little something; a little incentive. You will be surprised how many of your existing customers will suddenly begin to open the way to introduce you to some of their friends and their circle of influence.

Wrapping it Up

So in conclusion, as we look at the subject of making calls, the most difficult part in selling is approaching new prospects. If you cannot do this, don’t go into sales. I mean it. Don’t do it. Don’t think that your personality is going to change and it is suddenly going to become easy when you do it a bit.

Yes it will become easier but it will never be easy. If you are not the kind of person who can confront and face people and face new prospects you will never succeed in sales. It is not going to happen.

You can succeed if you are prepared to pay the price. But if you don’t enjoy it, you won’t be able to keep it up. I managed to keep up life assurance selling for two years and then my nerves couldn’t take it anymore.

It was two years of stress and I made enough money to get by, but I never thrived on it. What I thrived on was programming my computer to do better sales. I found myself spending more time programming the computer to do better sales and eventually I ended up just programming computers because that is really what I wanted to do.

Well that was before I got into the whole ministry thing and then ministry became my consuming passion and now God has bought the whole business thing back in again and now I am seeing my business as a ministry and I am reaching out beyond.

And so I am sharing some of my experiences with you, and yes I am not the same person I was in those days and I have a lot more boldness and confidence right now. And I have so many different selling capabilities and opportunities, and ways of selling that are open to me. That is why I am sharing and teaching these things now.

But since you have decided to go into business you must sell. If you want to sell, you must learn to make the calls.

Table of Contents

Section 01 – Climbing the Stairs of Selling

Chapter 01 – Five Main Stairs

Part 1 - The Doorway

Chapter 02 - The Buildup

Chapter 03 – The Close

Section 02 - Temperamental Selling

Chapter 04 – People Are Different

Chapter 05 – Temperamental Selling Weaknesses

Chapter 06 – Temperamental Selling Strengths

Chapter 07 – Relating to Other Temperaments

Section 03 - Selling with Sex Appeal

Chapter 08 – Usually for Men Only

Chapter 09 – Sales Sex Appeal

Section 04 - Influence and Persuasion in Selling

Chapter 10 – Overcoming Fear

Chapter 11 - Influencing the Whole Person

Section 05 - Making Sales Calls

Chapter 12 – Selling is Not Easy

Chapter 13 – Calculate Sales Ratios

Chapter 14 – How Different Temperaments Sell

Chapter 15 – Introduction to Marketing