Language and Persuasion
I used to think charisma was something you were born with, the 'gift of the gab' you either had it or you didn't. This was around the time I started my first paid job, working in a call centre selling household utilities. It didn't take me long to discover that those who were selling the most generally had three standout similarities;
- They were unwaveringly persistent;
- Their focus and drive was fixed on making the sale;
- They used their language purposefully to persuade and influence.
Fast forward 15 years, I now know these individuals who sold so well back then didn't have any special powers that were unavailable to me and my colleagues.
Having gone on to work with companies and individuals by way of Business Development and Coaching - driving results through increased sales, along with my previous experience running successful sales departments, I know the key to making consistent sales is using your language consciously to get the desired results in an ethical, you win and I win way.
Firstly, it's important to know and accept, all language is manipulative, written and/or spoken. I once coached a salesperson to make improvements on his communication skills, during our time together a customer made a complaint, quite vocally in front of other prospective clients. Accusing the salesperson I was working with of being manipulative, and of course, he was being, just by the very nature of talking. Interestingly, the person making the complaint was also being manipulative, perhaps unintentionally (perhaps not) their spoken complaint manipulated the way in which the salesperson reacted and also that of the prospective clients. Communication is a manipulative exchange.
The key is to begin to use your language purposefully, in an ethical way that delivers an outcome that is a win for you and a win for the person you're communicating with.
We all know or have heard of the 'sales process' or some similar variation of it - Establishing rapport, asking questions, finding a need, linking the need or value and closing a sale.
As a general rule, the above process works.
But how do you build effective and lasting rapport? How do you ask the right questions? How do you elicit a decision making strategy? How do you elicit someone's values? How do you understand someone's personality type and how that impacts their buying behaviour? How do you pace your clients' experience and then lead them to your product to solve their problem? How do you go about handling objections? How do you personally handle rejection? How do you conditionally close? How do you close?
Stay tuned - next week I'll begin to share with you some ways you can make small adaptations to your mindset and communication in order to enhance results. If you can't wait until then, send me a message and we can talk specifics :)