Selling Depends On Your Ability To Connect

Think about your best experiences in life that involve other people. What do they all have in common? Almost certainly, your answer has something to do with connection. At the simplest level, good things with other people can only happen when we connect.

If You Can Connect, You Can Positively Influence

The same concept applies to selling. That is why I have spent many years helping people in business find more effective methods to connect with their audiences and deliver value to their customers.

With anything in sales and human connection, you start with a surface connection. Then you progress to a deep connection, which is what I like to call the influence level, where you get people to take positive action and make a decision that benefits them.

If you engage with someone in a certain way and it creates a positive impression in their mind about you, the situation, and what you are saying, then trust starts building up.

Start Connecting By Transferring Certainty

The quality of your thoughts determines the quality of your speaking and selling. Many of my clients struggle to connect with others, so I teach them how to engage their audience in any situation.

One of the first things I focus on is how to transfer certainty. Humans are like parabolic antennas broadcasting emotions, which means that whatever we are feeling, the audience will pick up on it. They may only detect it on an unconscious level for the first few seconds, but the conscious mind will soon catch up.

When it comes to sales, you need to be particularly careful not to convey uncertainty to your audience because it is tough to sell something if you are unsure about it.

For example, if a friend asked you whether you would recommend going to a particular place and you said, ‘yes, but it wasn’t that good,’ would you go?

This situation clearly illustrates why it is essential to transfer certainty to your audience when selling to them. It is an essential early step to earning their trust, and it is difficult to progress the sales process if you fail to do it.

However, there is no need to dwell on the negatives. So think of a time in your life when you recommended a place you love to someone, and they then decided to go there. At that moment, you made a successful sale. And if you can apply that same certainty when selling your business, you will get better results.

Once You Have Connected, Then You Can Persuade

Aristotle believed that the art of persuasion is primarily about appealing to your audience’s emotions. There is a rational element, but TedX research indicates that this only makes up about 35% of a persuasive presentation.

If you want to assess the impact of your speeches, record yourself speaking for five minutes and then listen to it. Work out how much time you spend talking about yourself, your background, and your experience. Is it enough to establish credibility and position yourself as an authority in the mind of your audience? Or are you sharing so much about yourself that your audience will think you are self-obsessed and lose interest?

If you strike the appropriate balance, a speech can leave a lasting impression on your audience, and they may even tell friends or colleagues about it. However, if you find the whole process of preparing to speak overwhelming, concentrate on the most crucial thing: adding value for your audience.

When Apple launched the first iPod, they didn’t say it had 5GB of storage space; they said that 5GB was the equivalent of 1,000 songs in your pocket. This was a very clever method of highlighting what the audience would get if they purchased their product and a great way of putting data into perspective.

If you want to find out more about how you can stand out from the crowd, craft persuasive presentations, connect with your audience and deliver your greatness by mastering the language of influence and the art of public speaking or speaking to sell, join me for a virtual coffee.