Finding Another Gear

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I was out for an early morning walk not too long ago and was startled when a big German Shepherd came running straight at me. It was apparent he didn’t want to play so I raised my hands to get ready for the inevitable when suddenly his owner appeared, called his name, and the dog turned back to his house.

The incident got my heart rate going and reminded me of a similar situation when I was in college. During the summer I worked at a golf course which was about 10 miles from my home. I didn’t have regular access to a car so I rode my bike to work most days. Riding home was a little dangerous because quite often I was riding around 10 or 11 at night on some very busy roads and a few that were not well lit.
Because riding at night wasn’t safe I tried to get home as quickly as possible. I made a game of it, setting a goal to always ride home faster than the night before. I tell you that so you’ll know I was pushing myself hard the whole time I rode. In fact, like most people who push themselves, I didn’t think I could go any faster every time I rode home. My perspective changed one night when I heard a large dog barking and it sounded really close! I was amazed at how much more I could push myself and at how fast I could ride when I summoned all my energy. It was as if all of a sudden I found a new gear!
So what does this have to do with influence? As I thought about the bike riding incident so long ago it made me think about teaching people influence. I believe most people work hard most of the time. They probably convince themselves they can’t work any harder or longer, much like I convinced myself I couldn’t ride any faster.
While I found I could ride faster, unfortunately my extra effort couldn’t be sustained for long because of muscle fatigue. The same thing applies at work. Although we can always work harder in any given moment, or longer some days, we can’t do so indefinitely or else burnout sets in.
Not to worry because I have good news for you! You don’t always have to work harder or longer to get better results. When you tap into scientifically proven ways to communicate you will get better results by weaving persuasion into what you’re already doing. That’s right; you don’t have to come up with a new sales process, new marketing campaign or any other new endeavor to take advantage of the science of influence. Just look at what you’re currently doing with your communication and see where you can apply the science of influence. I’ll give you a few personal examples.
Voicemail – I incorporate a branding message at the beginning of my message and use consensus in the middle when I say “I’m probably on the phone helping another customer.” The last thing you want is for people to hear, “I’m probably in a meeting or away from my desk.”
Email – My autosignature has my title and designations which is an application of the principle of authority. I also use my picture when I’m dealing with new people because a photo creates familiarity which taps into the liking principle.
Marketing – We regularly send marketing material to prospective insurance agencies in hopes of signing them up with State Auto. When we started alerting those prospects about our agency appointment goal, and where we were relative to that goal – an application of scarcity – we saw a noticeable uptick in agents responding to our marketing emails. Those extra communications become our opportunity to sell the merits of our company.
Each of those examples are probably the kinds of things you’re currently doing in your business. However, if you’re like me before I learned about persuasion, then you’re probably missing out on some golden opportunities that are right in front of you.
There’s a time and place for working harder and longer hours because success comes through hard work and a little luck at times. On the flip side there are also times when we need to slow down and work less because we can’t maintain the hectic pace all the time. Whether you’re in the phase of longer hours and harder work or a slower time, if you ethically employ the scientifically proven principles of influence you will get significantly better results immediately; finding another gear so to speak. I’m confident of this because science and personal experience back me up on it.
Brian, CMCT
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

What Happens To Your Brain When You Are Being Influenced?

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The science of influence is just that – science. When I talk about influence I’m not sharing someone’s good advice because all too often that advice might not have any application for you. For example, Donald Trump can tell you things he does to close the deal and those techniques might work for one reason, because he’s Donald Trump. Without the Trump name his good advice might be worthless for you.

When I share influence and persuasion with people, what I share is based on more than five decades of scientific studies done by social psychologists and behavior economists. Based on their studies and understanding of human psychology, if you apply their findings ethically and correctly you will see an increase in people saying “Yes” to your requests.
To highlight the science, when I spoke at The Ohio State University earlier this year I shared the results from a brain scan done on two dozen college students who were presented with information from an authority. I used this example because it illustrates the reality that physiological things happen to people. Click on the video below to watch a three minute clip and learn more about the impact persuasion has on people’s brains.

If you’ve viewing this by email click here for the video.
Are you looking for a keynote speaker, training, or consulting on how to apply scientifically proven principles of influence to your sales, marketing, management or leadership?  If so, reach out to me (BFA654@gmail.com or 614.313.1663) and we’ll talk about your specific needs. 
Brian, CMCT 
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

An Interesting Thing Happened on the Way to Work…

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An interesting thing happened on the way to work a few weeks ago. Highways running through downtown Columbus are undergoing major reconstruction so traffic patterns have changed, lanes are restricted and many familiar exits are closed. It makes for a much more tense morning drive than normal.

As I was getting close to my exit I saw a large red truck coming up the left hand lane and it was apparent the driver was going to drive up as far as possible before cutting over to the right a couple of lanes to make the exit. I have no patience for people who continually barge ahead to save a few minutes at the expense of the rest of us who patiently and safely wait our turn. I was fairly close to the truck and my thought was, “He’s not getting in front of me.”
When it came time for him to make his move he did exactly what I thought he’d do. And what did I do? I let him in … and felt okay about it despite my initial angst. This all happened because a principle of influence suddenly made me react differently than I expected to.
The red truck had a Semper Fi sticker on the back and some other Marine stickers so it was apparent the driver served in the military at one time. I was not a Marine but my dad was, having served in Vietnam in the mid-60s. Also, my neighbor Dan, whom I’ve known since he was about three years old, is a Marine who did a tour in Afghanistan not too long ago. And to top it all off, my daughter Abigail loves the Marines because her grandpa served and Dan is like a big brother to her.
All of this ran through my mind in an instant and suddenly I found my attitude and intended behavior toward the other driver changed. It all had to do with the principle of liking. This principle tells us people prefer to say “Yes” to those they know and like. Oftentimes liking is initiated through something as simple as finding similarity with another person. While I wasn’t a Marine, as noted above, I have a special place for them in my heart. When I meet someone who is or was a Marine I always tell them I’m the son of a Marine. So you can see there’s a common bond there.
This shows us just how powerful liking is because I already shared I didn’t appreciate his driving behavior. Quite often the principles of influence override our logical thinking and change our behavior. When I explain this to people sometimes they resist the idea that something outside their conscious compelled them to do something. We want to believe we’re fully in control of our decision making and actions but in reality we’re not. Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational and more recently The Honest Truth about Dishonesty, explores in detail how we’re not logical beings and he shares many experiments in his books to back up that claim.
In Robert Cialdini’s best selling book, Influence Science and Practice, he points out several studies that show the influence liking has on sales. For example, when it comes to Tupperware sales, the social bond (i.e., liking) has twice as much impact on the decision to purchase than does the actual product preference. When it comes to insurance sales Cialdini wrote, “One researcher who examined the sale records of insurance companies found that customers were more likely to buy insurance when a salesperson was like them in age, religion, politics, and cigarette-smoking habits.” In each case, Tupperware or insurance, I’m certain a good number of people buying would adamantly deny the influence of liking but it’s hard to explain away the results.
I’m not going to encourage you to put bumper stickers on your car to let the world know your likes, dislikes and associations. Instead take this simple advice; when you get ready to meet someone, do a little homework to get to know them beforehand. When you learn you have things in common make sure you raise them to the surface early in the conversation because you never know, you may spot something like I did with the Marine and that might make all the difference between them saying “Yes” instead of “No.”

Brian, CMCT
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Reputation and the Recency Effect

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Last November I wrote a post called “Say it ain’t so, Joe” as the Jerry Sandusky case of sexually abusing young boys at Penn State University came to the attention of the American public. That horrible tragedy has made front page news again in the wake of the Freeh Report which stated there was a failure of leadership at Penn State University. The report also alleges legendary coach Joe Paterno (Joe Pa) knew about Jerry Sandusky’s behavior as far back as 1998.

This has led questions about what Joe Paterno’s legacy will be. Aside from having more wins than any other major college football coach in history, until the scandal broke, Joe Pa, as he was affectionately called by the faithful, was held up as example of a football coach who ran a clean program, helped boys become men, had real “student athletes,” and gave back to the community in countless ways during his 61 years at Penn State.
This post isn’t about convincing you one way or another how you should feel about Joe Paterno. Rather, it’s about understanding what impacts your thoughts about him as well as other people and situations you might find yourself reflecting on.
In psychology there’s something known as the “recency effect” which is also called “recency bias.” In a nutshell, we give more weight to information we recall most easily and quite often what we remember most is what we experienced last.
We see this all the time. In boxing it’s known as “stealing the round” when a boxer is getting beaten for the better part of the three-minute round but puts on a flurry of activity toward the end to win the round.
In the news we see it with different stories, like suddenly believing air travel is unsafe because of a few recent stories on airline disasters. Mad cow disease and the bird flu are another example. Both are extremely isolated events yet we tend to believe they happen far more than they actually do because of the coverage they get and how easily we recall the stories. In actuality, you have much more likelihood of death or injury from driving to work or other daily activities than you do from airplane accidents or the latest flu outbreak.
How about this – have you ever gone somewhere, had a really good time but the whole experience was marred by a bad ending? Maybe it was a great vacation that ended with flight delays or a round of golf that ended with a bad hole or two. If the flight delays were at the beginning of the trip most people would rate the trip higher than if they come at the end. And most golfers would prefer a round that starts poor and ends well rather than starts well and ends poor … even if the score for both rounds is identical.
The recency effect works both ways, good and bad. Take Tiger Woods, for example. While he lost millions in advertising revenue he appears to be accepted by the public every bit as much as he was before. At least that seems to be the case when you see golf fans responding to him when he’s in contention and winning tournaments.
On the flip side, whole careers are washed away when a great player makes a mistake. Just ask Bill Buckner or Jackie Smith. Buckner mishandled an easy ground ball in game 6 of the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets which allowed the Mets to win the game and eventually the series.  Smith dropped a pass in the end zone in Super Bowl XIII that could have possibly been the difference between winning and losing the game for the Dallas Cowboys.
Should potential Hall of Fame careers be weighed most heavily on how they end? Should someone’s misdeeds be relegated to the background just because they’re doing well in the moment? Should the good works of individuals be discarded because of scandal at the end?
The answers to those questions are for each of us to decide personally.  Collectively, our answers will determine how society remembers someone’s career or legacy. My goal is to help you see more clearly, and to recognize how your thinking is impacted by what you’ve recently experienced.  If you understand that you can review situations differently than you might currently. You might come up with the same conclusion but just like having more data to make decisions is usually good, so it is when it comes to understanding how your brain works with the recency effect.

Brian, CMCT
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

5 Pointers to Become Listening STARS

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Over the last few years I’ve conducted quite a few workshops on different sales skills. The workshops are designed to get people to practice the various skills they learn in our online training environment. One of my workshops focuses on active listening skills. In this post I’ll share five pointers from that workshop to help you become listening “STARS.”

What I’ll share are not principles of influence but they impact influence because if you’re not a good listener then your best attempts at persuasion will probably fail. Listening is
important because it helps you learn about the other person, hone in on similarities, and build on the liking principle. Listening is also vital when it comes to the principle of consistency because only when you hear someone can you tap back into their words and ethically engage consistency.

Listening is an active skill so you need to do several things if you want to excel. Unlike some skills, listening skills are all things you can do. For example, I often tell workshop attendees I can’t dunk a basketball. Never could and it’s not likely at 48 years old, standing just 5’9 tall, that I ever will. It’s a skill I don’t possess and can’t acquire no matter how hard I work at it. If someone told me my career depended on dunking a basketball I’d start looking for a new career. But not so with listening skills! Each of the five pointers I’ll share is within your capabilities if you’ll
simply make the choice to employ them.

To be listening STARS, you need to remember Stop, Tone, Ask, Restate and Scribble. We’ll take a brief look at each of these.

Stop – First thing you need to do when communicating with another person is stop everything else you’re doing so you can give them your full attention. People who think they can multi-task are fooling themselves. Scientific studies show people who try to multi-task end up taking longer to do both tasks and are more prone to errors. My own personal experiment, which I’ll share at the end of this article, verifies this.
Tone – A person’s tone of voice is important for a couple of reasons. First, it indicates mood. You can usually tell by the tone of voice whether someone is happy, sad, angry, stressed, relaxed, etc. The other reason tone is important is because it gives more meaning to the communication. For example, the sentence, “I can’t believe you did that,” can mean many different things depending on the word or words the speaker emphasizes.
Ask – Make sure you ask good questions. This helps clarify the message the other person is trying to deliver. It’s also a great way for you to find out things you think are relevant to the discussion, even if the other person doesn’t think they’re important.
Restate – It’s not enough to think you know, or think you understand what the other person said; you need to verify you’re on the same page. Restating what you think you heard, and then putting the message in your own words is a quick, easy way to make sure you fully understand the message as it was intended.
Scribble – Take notes. Remember, note taking isn’t to write a novel, it’s to capture key points and key words to jar your memory as you recall the conversation. Too often I see people take the focus off of the speaker because they get so intent on writing as much as they can but in the end they miss a lot because this is a form of multi-tasking.
Let me share this about multi-tasking. During the listening workshops I read a short, one-page story to each class. As I read I have one-third of the class just sit back and listen, another one-third takes notes, and the rest of the people are distracted as they try to connect scrambled numbers from 1 to 72 while listening to the story. After I finish I give a 10 question quiz to everyone. Having done this with nearly 200 people what I found was those who took notes got about 60% more questions correct than the distracted group who were busy connecting numbers while trying to listen. Those who just sat back and actively listened got nearly 75% more questions right than the distracted group. Wow!
Two learning points come out of this exercise. First, as mentioned above, if you take notes, be brief so it doesn’t become a distraction. Second, and more importantly, stop whatever you’re
doing and give your full attention to the person speaking. That means put away your cell phone when you’re in a meeting or conference. You can say all you want that you can do both but you will miss more of the message because odds are, you’re probably not the statistical anomaly who breaks the mold.
So let me ask this – what would it do for you if you caught 60% to 70% more of a prospect or customer’s message than your competitors? I’d imagine it would do a lot for sales and service. To wrap things up, if you want to be master persuaders then make sure you’re listening STARS. Make the choice to follow the five simple steps I’ve outlined above and you’ll be on the path to becoming a much better listener.

Brian, CMCT
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Great Customer Service Isn’t Selling

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I stopped by Bath and Body Works not too long ago to pick up an impromptu gift for Jane. She was in New York with Abigail for the weekend and I noticed her body wash was almost gone. I thought it would be a nice surprise for her when she came home late Sunday night to see three bottles of body wash, each a different fragrance, awaiting her.

While I was at the store a nice young lady came to my aid. Like most men I tried to look like I knew what I was doing and like most ladies who work there, she could quickly spot a clueless male customer. If you’ve never been in the store there’s a dizzying array of choices (lotions, shampoo, body wash, etc.) and even more fragrances!
The lady was helpful, showing me I can take the cap off to smell the different scents. Like most males, I bought the first three I smelled. It’s much like sniffing wine; I’d never send it back but I have to do it to make it look like I know what I want.
I made my three choices, feeling like a bargain shopper because I got the “buy two, get one free” deal, even though the rational part of me knows nobody ever pays full price when shopping there. At the counter I thanked the lady for helping me and in response I heard her say, “No problem.”
She provided good customer service but blew the opportunity to sell it by squandering her chance after hearing “thanks.” So let me state this emphatically – providing good or great customer service is not selling! Unfortunately too many retail establishments and customer service reps think it is.
People expect products to work as advertised and they expect at least good customer service. Providing either becomes nothing more than an afterthought once the sale is made unless the rep sells it. So now you’re thinking; then what should they do? How about this:
“That’s part of the great service you can expect when you shop at Bath and Body Works. Thanks for coming in, I hope we see you again.”
Pretty simple, isn’t it? In fact, it’s so simple every employee can be taught to say it or some variation of it.
So what’s the benefit? It strengthens the connection between the great service and the company providing it. Done the right way and often enough, customers start consciously and subconsciously making the connection themselves. It makes returning to the store the next time a “no brainer” decision.
This taps into the principle of consistency. People want to be consistent in what they say, do and believe. If they believe your company has great products or gives great service they will continue to do business with you unless something else intervenes. And even if something else intervenes – like a lower price – your great service or product will give people reason to pause and think before simply reacting to price. But, if they don’t have reason to pause then why wouldn’t they go elsewhere if they can save a little money?
Brian Tracy, sales trainer and author of The Psychology of Selling wrote, “Selling is the process of persuading a person that your product or service is of greater value to him than the price you’re asking for it.” As a man I know very little about what women should pay for things like lotion and bath salts but I know someone helping me when I look helpless is adding the value that Brian Tracy refers to.
So here’s my advice; find a way to comfortably incorporate, “That’s part of the great [fill in the blank] you can expect when you deal with [fill in the blank].” Play with it, get comfortable with how it sounds, and make it your own. Doing so is a sure way to strengthen the connection in the mind of the customer and will lead to even more repeat business.
Brian, CMCT 
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Influencers from Around the World – Moments of Power: How to Identify and Use Them

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This month’s Influencers from Around the World post comes to us by way of Italy and Marco Germani. Marco has been guest writing for me almost since the start of this blog. In addition to helping me out several times a year he took time to write his own book on persuasion in Italian, I Meccanismi della
Persuasione. I encourage you to reach out to Marco on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter because he loves connecting with people.

Brian, CMCT 
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.
Moments of Power: How to Identify and Use Them
During our interactions with others we often unconsciously find ourselves in the so-called “moments of power,” times where we can engage our partner with a highly persuasive lever for the future, even if, at that very moment we have no interest in persuading the person to do anything.
Recognizing and using these moments of power is of vital importance and has become a standard practice of every good persuader. On the other hand, letting these special moments pass without any benefit, as most people do, deprives us of a favorable opportunity to exercise
our powers of persuasion, forgoing the chance to move others in our direction in an ethical way that’s also in their best interest. 
So, what are these “moments of power” and how do we recognize them? And above all, what should we do when we find ourselves in the middle of them? The answer to these questions is surprisingly simple and can be illustrated with a short example:
Dr. Smith, manager at a large company, receives a call from a colleague who asks with a worried tone if Dr.
Smith can lend a hand because he has a meeting with a key customer of the company the next morning and producing sales report is of the highest priority for the colleague. He also needs to produce some other documents and has no time to do this by himself before the meeting.
The colleague is not aware of it but Dr. Smith has recently created a report very similar to the one in question and, with only a few changes, the same document can very well be used for next day’s meeting.
The next day, the two men meet at the office and the colleague first thanks Dr. Smith profusely, praising his
responsiveness and the timing of his action, telling him that he pretty much “saved
his life.” How should Dr. Smith respond to this praise? Being a person of integrity and honesty he simply says, “Well, you don’t even have to thank me, it was a small thing, I had already prepared a similar study and didn’t do anything else but send it with a few changes. I would have done it for anyone!”
Here, Dr. Smith has just found himself in one of the famous moments of power and has just blatantly wasted it!
Sound familiar? Maybe it’s happened to you recently.
Now let’s see what the good doctor should
have done instead. We can identify three fundamental points:
1)
Do not belittle the magnitude of the action. This doesn’t mean you have to brag about what you have done, saying that the report cost us hours and hours of work, because this wouldn’t be ethical! Just say something like, “I tried to create for you the most accurate and precise report possible.  I put all my efforts in it and I am glad you appreciate it.” The detail that the report has already created is beside the
point when it comes to persuasion and may be omitted.
2)
Highlight the fact that the action was done specifically because the request came from that person. Instead of saying, “I’d do it for anyone,” say, “I know how important it was for you and I know how hard you work, so if I could give you a hand, I did it very willingly.” In other words, we are customizing our action.
3)
Laying the foundations to be reciprocated. Proper use of a moment of power gives us a future persuasive lever to use with that person. Another way to look at it is it gives us a “credit” with the other person and the principle of reciprocity alerts us to the fact that the other person will feel obligated to reciprocate in some way. To emphasize and establish this point you just say a simple but powerful phrase, “I know you would have done the same for me if the roles were reversed.”
Think of how many times somebody
thanks you for a favor and how, you can now quickly and easily apply the three
points described above. Begin to practice this technique now so you don’t miss
any more “moments of power.”
Marco

The Power of Concessions

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In February I spoke to several dozen business coaches from the Central Ohio Chapter of the International Coach Federation. During my hour with the group at The Ohio State University I shared ways they could use specific  principles of influence to help their clients obtain better results.

Below is a short video clip where I talked about the power of concessions, sharing the results from a little experiment Dr. Robert Cialdini and his students conducted at Arizona State University. I think you’ll find it very interesting how they tripled the response rate to a certain request by prefacing their request with something beforehand.

If you’ve viewing this by email click here for the video.

Is your organization looking for a keynote speaker, training or consulting on the application of ethical influence and persuasion in the workplace? If you are just reach out to me by email at BFA654@gmail.com. 

Brian, CMCT 
influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Manipulative Email Marketing? You Decide

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I received an email one Thursday a while back with “Monday’s ‘oops’” in the subject line. The opening of the email read as follows:

 

Dear Brian,
Monday we accidentally sent an email to you,
which was intended for our members.
Please accept my sincere apology for any
inconvenience this may have caused.
If you’d like to see the video referenced in the
announcement
please click here.
It’s actually a “commercial” of my daughter
telling the story of how she was struck in her car,
5 months pregnant, with her two-year-old son
in the back seat …
…
And how her insurance agent was there to
help her deal with the aftermath

I didn’t recall seeing any email from this company on Monday and wondered why the company would have sent emails like this to any non-members. I looked up the sender online and didn’t see that I was connected with him on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else. And by his own admission I wasn’t a member of his group.

Also, if it was indeed an accident then wouldn’t a short apology have been appropriate rather than a second attempt to get people to watch the commercial?

This smacks me as manipulation pure and simple. First, I think a simple apology would have been sufficient if it really was an accident. If it wasn’t an accident but rather a ploy to get people to watch the video then we can add dishonesty as one more reason to not watch.

The principle of scarcity tells us people want things more when they can’t have them or think they’re being taken away. When I share this principle with groups I like to cite a study that’s referred to in Influence Science and Practice. The study was conducted with law students at the University of Chicago where they acted as a mock jury for a test case. They were presented facts and asked to give a judgment for the defendant. In the control group the average award was $33,000. A second group was told the same fact and one more was added – the defendant had insurance. Knowing there was more ability to pay, the average award increased to $37,000. A third group was told about the insurance but then the judge said that was inadmissible and should be struck from the record. He instructed the jury to not consider the insurance when deciding on the award. For the third group the average award was $46,000, a 39% increase!

It might seem counterintuitive that mock jurors awarded the most when told not to consider the insurance but what we clearly see is the psychology of scarcity at work. As soon as we’re told we can’t have something we tend to want it even more. When they were told they should not consider the insurance they placed even greater weight on it.

And think about this; you can’t not think about something. In other words, if I tell you not to think about pink elephants you will think of a pink elephant, even if for just a moment. I can imagine jurors talking about the very thing they’re not supposed to consider which means somehow, some way, it will factor into the decision.

So back to the email I received. By telling people they received it by accident, that it was only supposed to go to members, the company was trying to invoke some scarcity. They were hoping people would think, “I wonder what members get to see that I don’t?” While most of you reading this might see right through the tactic I guarantee a large number of people who are unfamiliar with the influence process didn’t see it for what it was and out of sheer curiosity watched the video.

Not one to let things go I sent a short, simple reply to the sender, “If you were really sorry the apology line would have been enough rather than an attempt to get people to watch your video.” I never heard back from them.

Here’s my suggestion – when you sense people are using the psychology of persuasion in a manipulative way call them out on it. I could have gone on Twitter and done that in front of the world but I don’t think that’s right and that’s why I refrained from using the name of the person or the company. A private reply was enough and now I have more important things to move onto.

Brian, CMCT

influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Why Selling Still Matters

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It’s 5:30 a.m. and I’m already fired up! No, it’s not the three cups of Starbucks or the fact that my workout is done that has me going, it’s an article I just read, To Increase Revenue Stop Selling. The article opens with, “Creating or expanding business relationships is not about selling – it’s about establishing trust, rapport, and value creation without selling.”

I don’t disagree with the need to establish trust and rapport. When I teach persuasion workshops we focus quite a bit on two principles that address these. Robert Cialdini’s principle of authority stresses the need for trust and expertise. After all, would you want to deal with an expert you can’t trust? Of course not.

When it comes to rapport, that is facilitated by the liking principle. As Jeffery Gitomer says, “All things being equal, people want to do business with their friends. All things not being so equal, people still want to do business with their friends.” Friendship and likability are huge! We’ll see how important likability is in the upcoming election because I can’t think of a time when the more likable candidate didn’t win the presidency.

So I’m onboard with the need to be a trusted and well liked advisor but that’s not nearly enough. I’ll give a perfect example. Many years ago at my company we had a large project under way working with an outside consulting firm in an effort to stimulate more sales growth. We were highly profitable but sales lagged compared to our peer group competitors. The consultants met with our agents face-to-face, conducted phone interviews and administered an online survey. Our survey participation was off the charts and one of the consultants said, “We’ve never worked with a company where the client has had so much affection for the company. Your agents love you.” Did you catch that – affection and love?
We were a trusted advisor with excellent relationships and sales stunk. I said to one consultant, “We’re like the girl everybody likes but no one asks to the dance.” Trust and likability were not translating into sales.
I’m not sure how the author missed this point but value creation is selling. He wrote, “It’s time for companies to realize that consumers have become very savvy and very demanding.
Today’s consumer (B2B or B2C) does their homework, is well informed, and buys…they are not sold.” I have no disagreement with people hating to be sold but loving to buy. That said, however, today’s consumers are not as sophisticated as people think. Sure, they go online and “research” but you know what most of that amounts to? Price shopping.
Consider this; when telephones and the Yellow Pages were the norm, don’t you think there were people writing articles about how sophisticated consumers had become because they could call around and find out about products with ease? You bet there were!   What I’ve seen for more than 25 years in the insurance industry is people calling around to get the cheapest price the vast majority of the time. And so it is today when people “research” online. The majority are simply looking for the lowest price.
Value creation is about sharing why the price you’re asking is worth it. According to Brian Tracy, author of Advanced Selling Strategies, “Selling is the process of persuading a person that your product or service is of greater value to him than the price you’re asking for it.”
And here’s another interesting point that Steve Jobs showed us – sometimes people don’t know what they want or need. None of us had a clue about the iPod, iPhone or iPad until Jobs created them. Selling sometimes entails pointing out things the consumer might not have thought of. A good salesperson can fall back on the experience of other clients to point out features and benefits the prospective customer might not have considered.
The older I get the more I appreciate the basics. We don’t need grapefruit or Hollywood diets to lose weight, we just need to eat sensibly from the four food groups. We don’t need Madonna or Sylvester Stallone’s latest workouts to be fit; just get to the gym consistently and do some cardio work while you’re there. And we certainly don’t need the latest 10 step sales process that’s guaranteed to make sales skyrocket. Salespeople need to do the basics well – listen more than you talk, ask good questions to uncover needs, care about your client personally and professionally, know your products – how they differ from the competition and how they can help your client, understand how to ethically persuade, and don’t be afraid to ask for the sale.
Do people want to be sold? No. Do they want to work with people they trust and like? Absolutely. Can you get away without selling? Give it a try and soon you’ll be looking for a new career.
Brian, CMCT
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