How Attractive a Salesperson are YOU?
As I was riding my motorcycle the other day, I was in the most content of places, really.
I love being on the bike.
Picture this if you will.
A stretch of gorgeous Spanish coastline, brilliant sunshine, prairie-style planes and mountains to the left, the sea on my right side and a warm breeze!
With my feet up on the cruise pegs, Mick Jagger crooning symphony for the devil through the bike’s speakers, I never wanted this ride to end…
For those of you who know me, you’ll know I love words and phrases, and especially playing around with them, creating acronyms, and discovering their origins.
As I was listening to Mick, I got to thinking about that great word, Attraction!
There’s been a bit said about this, particularly since Rhonda Byrne released, ‘The Secret’, and eleventeen million people jumped on the Law of Attraction (LOA) bandwagon – either selling it, preaching it, practicing it – within their own limited understanding of how it was supposed to work.
How boring…
Why, because it kind of just is – as with all fads, their overt popularity fades with time, and is ultimately replaced by something else, this LOA malarkey has had a damn good run though, but then Einstein’s theory of Relativity has too!
Alas, the LOA Secret Style, still has many devotees banging the drum, so to speak.
But here’s a thing…
Get past the fever pitch excitement, the happy-clappy, jumping up and down crap, and I can tell you I personally know of at least 7 people who really took this LOA lark to heart - read it, listened to it, watched it, breathed and dreamt it – wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it (excuse my French) – guess what, they were all ok-ish, prior to their obsession with this age-old new dark art, now 5 of them are absolutely broke, and sadly a little ‘la la’ in their heads, Lost and mad would be another word!
So, doesn’t it work?
Well, yes, but like anything you must know how to use and implement it, and you have to know that when a ten-ton lorry is heading for you, that you’d better move the fuck out of the way or you’re finished.
It’s not part of a greater plan by The Universe for your personal greater good!
In other words, you need a proper grip on reality – a balance…
So how do we do Attraction selling you’re wondering?
Great question, thought you’d never ask!
Let’s get started by taking a realistic look at this diverse word, and seeing how we can apply the four components I’m about to reveal into our sales and work activities.
Firstly, there’s the world itself, Attraction.
The dictionary offers us amongst other explanations, this;
“The action or power of evoking interest in, or liking for someone or something.”
It goes on to list synonyms as, appeal, magnetism, charisma, seduction and desirability – you get the picture here…
So, to put attraction to work for us as salespeople, we must have congruency here, that’s to say, we need an attractive and desirable offer – and we need to become attractive and desirable conduits through which our customers can avail themselves of our fab offerings.
This ethos is as much, if not more in the words we say, and how and when we say them, as it is how we look and dress.
Developing what I call, Complementary Language – using words and phrases that are naturally attractive and inspiring, asking great questions which engender thought provoking answers and require the customer to go back down his internal timeline.
So, let’s be attractive in how we think, speak, write and present ourselves.
Remember, A is for ATTRACTIVE, B ATTRACTIVE!
ATTRACT, is the second component we can see in the word attractive, and like the bigger word, this shorter version can probably cover all of the above, but with a particular emphasis alluring, winning over, engaging – we tempt the prospect to try our proposition – a magnet attracts – so we need to bear this in mind before every pitch – get in state and remind ourselves of our deliberate intention before we make the call, and our desired outcome.
TRACTION is the third-word component I see here within the overall word.
So, what’s traction?
A good friend of mine, who knows a thing or two about selling, that is to say if getting into the Sunday Times rich list north of 75 million quid is anything to judge by… used to say to me when we were collaborating on a few deals, “Are we getting any traction here Steve?”
Meaning, specifically – is the rubber sticking to the road and when we hit the accelerator – YES, we’re moving.
It’s keeping that all-important grip on everything and still being to move forward positively and proactively.
And finally, folks, you must have worked it out for yourselves already?
Our last component word born out of ATTRACTION, is of course, ACTION!
I recently overheard another friend commenting,
“The ones who are taking the action, are the ones who are making the money.”
How true, she’s kind of nailed it there.
I’ll just make it a bit more proportionate for you.
If we take just a little action, we more than likely see just a little by way of return.
And so, the more action we take the bigger the return, right?
You could say, your returns will be directly proportionate to the amount of focussed action you take every day, towards the attainment of your MDP (major definite propose).
So, that fifth bonus word in there that you think I’ve missed, is ACT, so come guys let’s get our ACT’s together and make this April an action-packed, traction-packed month!
I hope you’ve found this session useful and informative.
This type of teaching, along with many other techniques and ideas I’ve learned and formed over the last 33 years in professional sales, has helped me to help others who are now following that path.
I’ve recently helped a company go from an almost standing start to in excess of 50 new customers a month from their small telesales team, and I worked with one of Siemens’ telesales teams for four months and we achieved a 74% increase in their results!
Bottom line, this stuff and all the other techniques and delivery methods really work!
Until next time…
Best wishes in all your sales endeavours, and keep on keeping on.
SteveQ