If you have been in sales for any length of time, you can almost tell immediately in any sales call whether or not you and your prospect will “connect”. Does it feel like this conversation is comfortable or is it going to be a stretch for both parties? If it’s the latter, this may be a long and painful row to hoe which may or may not bear any fruit in the end.
Over the coming weeks (perhaps even months), we will be discussing the most effective techniques that can be used in selling to different behavioral styles and this is centered around how each of us prefers to communicate with others. We all know that people buy from people who they know, like, and trust. Let’s talk for a moment about “like” and “trust”. Are folks that meet both criteria likely to be much like yourself in these areas? The typical answer is “yes”. We tend to be most comfortable around those people who we perceive to be much like ourselves. The problem is … we’re all different!
Successfully selling to different behavioral patterns is a three-step process …
- We must first understand ourselves and our own tendencies
- Next we learn, through a variety of clues and observations, how to quickly assess the preferred behavioral styles of others
- Finally, we will learn to adapt our own styles to meet the needs of those who we are communicating with.
The old adage that it is “not what you say but rather how you say it” holds a great deal of truth. How you say it is much more than just molding your message into a more diplomatic sentence structure. It is how you deliver it and through the use of specific words and ideas that are designed to meet that person’s individual motivations while at the same time being sure to avoid their irritants.
Please be sure to keep a close eye on this site for upcoming articles on this subject! Next week we will dive deeply into understanding ourselves. You can use the button below to quickly subscribe to our future articles and these can be delivered to you automatically via email or to your Google Reader. This does not sign you up for our monthly newsletter but, a form for that can be found on the right sidebar of this page!
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