Aikido and The Art of Selling

If you’re not familiar with Aikido, it’s a non-aggressive martial art whose purpose is to diffuse conflict.?It’s quite powerful, because the philosophy it teaches has major implications for the way we live our lives.?How you handle conflict can make the difference between feeling like a victim and feeling like a winner.

In fact, I’ve based my Unlock The Game sales approach on the philosophy behind Aikido.?The “techniques” I teach for selling are designed to diffuse conflict or pressure.

Not having a philosophy and the tactical skills to diffuse sales pressure is like walking into a boxing ring where you’ve got gloves and the other guy doesn’t.

Being the recipient of those punches isn’t going to be pleasant.

Yet, that’s how most people who have been trained in the old traditional way of selling are feeling these days – like a punching bag.?They feel like they’re about to be beat up every time they start a sales conversation.?They feel almost helpless, and that’s why they overcompensate by being overly confident, aggressive and pushy.

Good-hearted people without a way of protecting themselves; good-hearted people who, instead of running from fear, can create genuine trust with their potential clients and feel good about it.?

I don’t want you to have to experience the rejection and pain that old-style selling says you have to endure.?So, I’m going to go over a few different scenarios which can help you learn this new sales Mindset.

Scenario 1: Phone Calls

Suppose you’re at your desk and you receive a call from someone who says “Hi, my name is Jack Johnson, I'm with XYZ Company, and we’re a full-solution provider of...” Is your first reaction to welcome and be open to his call? Or do your mental defenses immediately kick in and you shut down against this stranger “salesperson”?

Probably the latter, especially if you sense that the caller is focused on his interests and not yours.

That’s why this old-school sales approach triggers the resistance and negative energy that prospects immediately throw your way.

The Unlock The Game way to make a successful sales conversation phone call -- "successful” being defined as not triggering rejection -- is by beginning your call with, “Hi, my name is Jack, maybe you can help me out for a moment?”?That simple question is a very natural way of beginning a conversation with a stranger.

But you can't just read this word for word, like a script. It won’t work. That would be like an Aikido instructor teaching a first-time student the physical movements before he or she has learned the philosophy necessary to carry them out.

The same applies here. First you need to integrate a new Mindset that changes the goal of your call from making the sale, or getting an appointment, to engaging the person in a natural two-way dialogue.

To do this, your voice has to be low-key. You have to avoid communicating any hint of typical “salesperson” enthusiasm, or any sense that you’re trying to direct the conversation to an end goal. Once you integrate the Mindset, all this kicks in naturally.

So, if you want to succeed in prospecting with a phone call, become aware of how you might be triggering the resistance or energy that instinctively causes prospects to push back against you.

Scenario 2: “Get-you-off-the-phone” objections

Here’s another example. Forget the idea of “overcoming objections.” Doing that only triggers more resistance from prospects that’s very difficult to diffuse.

Think about it for a moment. When prospects give a reason why they don’t want to proceed --when they “put up resistance” -- you’ve been trained to “overcome” their objections rather than to diffuse their resistance by acknowledging that what they’re telling you is their truth.

By applying the Unlock The Game Mindset? and skills, you diffuse that resistance and remove the conflict from the situation, just as in Aikido.

Here’s the Unlock The Game? process for dealing with objections:

1. Diffuse the objection with “That's not a problem... (Pause)”

2. Acknowledge the truth of their objection (see the sample language below).

3. Reopen the conversation with “Would you be open to...”

For example, suppose a prospect says, “We already have a vendor.” The path of diffusing and reengaging would go like this:?

1. “That's not a problem...(Pause)”?

2. “I wasn't calling to replace the vendor you’re currently using.” Here, you’re addressing their suspicion that your only focus is on making the sale and on ripping out their relationship with their current vendor. You’re simply asking whether they would be open to different ideas that might help them solve a problem. This diffuses the tension.

3. “Would you be open to some different ideas that you might not be using now?” After the tension is dissolved, this lets you reopen the conversation in a natural way because they clearly understand that your goal is to help them. Then, if things are a match between you, you can decide where to go from there.

Keep in mind that this process will work only if you fully integrate the Mindset so it feels as natural to you as breathing.

In short, if you’re using any form of traditional selling, you could be triggering a resistance every time you communicate with your prospect.

But if you learn this new Mindset, along with words and phrases that remove any conflict or tension from the relationship, you’ll have taken your first steps toward your black belt in unlocking the sales conversation phone call game!

Ari Galper is the World’s #1 Authority On Trust-Based Selling and the creator of Unlock The Game?, a new sales mindset that overturns the notion of selling as we know it today. His personal insights on how to build trust between buyers and sellers continues to break new ground. Thousands of Business Owners worldwide have been transformed by his trust-based sales approach. Get access to the Free Masterclass at?www.UnlockTheGame.com/Video?and subscribe to this podcast or to be a guest on the show, visit?www.UnlockTheGame.com/Podcast