Dan Seidman on the Single Most Potent Influence Strategy

The following is a guest post by Dan Seidman, author of The Secret Language of Influence: Master the One Skill Every Sales Pro Needs shares his single most potent influence strategy which you can use both professionally and personally

Picture this, you’re 12 years old and today you came home from school fired up about your future. At dinner you let your parents in on your big secret.

“Mom, Dad, guess what? I decided what I want to be when I grow up. I’m going to be a doctor!”

Mom is wonderful, always encouraging. Her immediate response is “Honey that’s great! Doctors are so well respected. You’ll make good money; have a nice house and a wonderful spouse. I’m delighted you want to be a doctor.”

How, on the other hand, does Dad respond?

“A doctor? A doctor? Do you know how much money it costs to become a doctor? A fortune! Do you want to go to school for 16 more years? And you’ll be working with sick people all day. Malpractice insurance, lawsuits, long, long hours? Are you out of your mind? You want to be a doctor?”

Wow! What a contrast between Mom and Dad’s responses.

Dad is exhibiting what we call, in psychology, a “polarity response.” He moves away from others’ ideas.

While the terminology itself might be new to you, you’ve probably experienced it from others your whole life. Perhaps you’re even the person who’s resistant to the suggestions of friends, family or business colleagues.

This is a serious selling problem, prospects do this as well.

We’ve just arrived at a critical teaching moment for your sales life:

People either move toward ideas or away from them.

Okay, cool concept. What do I do with it?

You want to be able to have two very different conversations with your buyers (or anyone you need to influence).

One is based on all the good things that happen when the other person says YES. It’s a conversation about benefits, goals, positive outcomes. This is essentially what we grew up with in the selling world – feature/ benefit selling.

The other conversation is about pointing out and questioning consequences, problems, trouble on the horizon – until the buyer says YES. This is about a new trend in sales training – to only use pain to persuade. Both strategies work, depending on your buyer.

The influential language we use to describe all of this is TO and AWAY. Is that person across the desk or across the phone a TO person (benefits and goals-oriented)? Or an AWAY person (problem and pain-oriented)?

I consider this the most important influence strategy you can learn. Because it affects the dialogues you have with buyers throughout the sales process. And it’s easy to recognize and respond to in all of your relationships, so you can practice dealing with it on a personal level, before you apply it to sell.

Again, the concept is very simple. We’re going to divide our whole world of potential customers into two categories. This is much easier than learning and memorizing and identifying prospects according to all these personality tools like, DISC, Myers Briggs, Numerology, Handwriting Analysis, even Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief.

You understand the idea, it’s simple and obvious, so here’s an exercise you can use in your office to put this all into play.

• Create a list of all your benefits on the left column of a page. On the right, list all the problems you solve (present and future). You now have tons of talking points to use, once you recognize whether the other person is TO or AWAY.
• Learn to sell on both sides of the page. Learn to sell your products and services as a sales pro. Learn to sell your ideas inside a company, as a business pro. And learn to sell yourself and your ideas within personal relationships, too.
• I’ll leave you with one more task – who will you share this learning moment with? Is it a fellow salesperson? An entrepreneur? Someone in your networking group?  Who needs to know this?
• Forward this or print it. Then sit down for an hour with them to build out your list; benefits on the left, problems on the right. Work together, and you’ll come up with more ideas than doing this exercise solo.

You now have a potent new strategy, a method to apply it and a document which you’ve built to revisit this valuable idea.

GREAT selling and I’d love to get your feedback and experiences with this influence technique.

Dan Seidman  is the founder of GOT INFLUENCE? He keynotes and trains from his library of 600+ hilarious selling blunders. Dan is the author of six books and his business columns are read by almost 2 million monthly readers. He designs sales training programs for major global organizations as well as entrepreneurial companies. Dan is a World Master’s athlete with three gold medals playing on the U.S. basketball team. His next two business trips are to the exotic locations of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Istanbul, Turkey.  The author can be reached at Dan@GotInfluenceInc.com and 1-847-359-7860.

Tom Sant on the Four Steps to Write a Winning Business Proposal

The following is a guest post by Tom Sant, author of Persuasive Business Proposals: Writing to Win More Customers, Clients, and Contracts, 3rd Edition about writing a “killer” business proposal and executive summary.

A client recently shared a great story about one of their sales proposals.  They had just won a major contract with the FBI.  At the debriefing, the FBI’s contracting officer said, “Your executive summary was so good, we knew we were going to give you this award by the time we got to page two.  In fact, it was so good, I took it home and read it to my husband so that he’ll understand what we’re doing.

Wow!  That’s the kind of “killer” executive  summary and business proposal we all want to write.  But what’s the secret?  In my experience, there are four best practices that separate the great from the grubby:

1. First, organize the executive summary persuasively.
  That means presenting your content in the following order:

• Needs:  demonstrate that you understand the client’s business and the key issues or problems
• Outcomes:  focus on the results they want to achieve by addressing the needs or solving the problems.
• Solution:  recommend a solution that will solve the problems and deliver the results
• Evidence:  provide proof that you can deliver that solution on time and on budget

When people are making decisions, that is the order in which they want to see your content.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of executive summaries start out with a focus on the vendor—the company’s history or its capabilities.  Those are death moves.

2. Second, make sure your content is client centered.
To do that, you must be able to answer seven questions.  (If you can’t answer them, either go back and talk to the prospect more or strongly consider a No Bid.  You don’t know enough to write a winning executive summary.)  Here are the seven questions:

• What is the customer’s problem, need, issue or opportunity?
• Why does it matter?
• What outcomes does the client want to achieve?
• Which outcome matters the most?
• What solutions can we offer?
• Which one is the best fit?
• What differentiates us from others who may be bidding on this opportunity?

3. Third, offer a compelling value proposition. 
Look at the answer to question four: what outcome matters the most to the client?  That’s the basis for your value proposition.  Essentially you are making the prospect a promise: You will get more of the results you desire the most if you choose us.  Then you quantify how much more and you back that promise up by referencing your differentiators and your proof.  You can do all of that in a short paragraph, but if you leave out a value proposition completely, as most executive summaries do, you are telling the buyer that what you are offering is a commodity and that they should  by it from whichever supplier is cheapest.

4. Fourth, write clearly.
Too often proposal writers lapse into four pseudo-languages that simply do not communicate.  I call these pseudo-languages Fluff, Guff, Geek and Weasel.

• Fluff is the use of undefined, grandiose words and phrases:  world class, best of breed, state of the art, seamless, robust.  None of that means anything.
• Guff is the use of impenetrable language—long, convoluted sentences; jargon and acronyms; overly complicated vocabulary—in an attempt to show the customer how smart we are.
• Geek is the use of language that is inappropriate for the audience.  It’s too technical or too specialized.  Unfortunately, people often forget that their product and service names mean nothing outside of the company.  They’re just another form of undefined jargon.
• Weasel is language that seems to squirm out of making any affirmative statements at all:  would, could, might, may, up to, virtual, and so on.  Sometimes these words are appropriate, but when we start using Weasel words all the time, the create doubt in the decision maker’s mind.

Focus  on those four best practices and you too can write an executive summary that’s so good your customer takes it home to read to the family over dinner!

Dr. Tom Sant, with Hyde Park Partners, is the author of Persuasive Business Proposals 3rd edition ( 2012), The Giants of Sales and The Language of Success.  The author of more than $30 billion in winning proposals, he has worked with companies around the world to improve their success rate.  His clients include Microsoft, Dell, HSBC, Wells Fargo, Thomson Reuters, BAE Systems, DHL and many others.  Tom was named one of the top 10 sales trainers in the world by Selling Power magazine

Random Quotes from New Books This April

It may be April Fools’ Day, but there’s no fooling about our new books! Check them out. No joke.

Negotiation at Work by Ira G. Asherman

“The big problem is that the glasses you have in stock are not clear, but have a blue tint. Each glass also has a basketball, a baseball,and a football engraved on it. Your boss has told you to figure out a way to get the client to buy the blue-tinted glasses. She does not want to carry the inventory any longer. The glasses have been sitting in the warehouse for six months. They are all packed and ready for shipment and are of higher quality than the ones the client wants. What would you do? ” (page 37)

Persuasive Business Proposals by Tom Sant

“Of the thousands of proposals I read each year, the majority do not recommend anything. Most of them lapse into informative writing simply describe a product or service. Descriptions have their place, but they can come across as evasive in a proposal. In addition, descriptions typically consist of standard verbiage that provides a general understanding of the product or service, but nothing specifically relevant to the customer. An effective solution links specific features of the product or service back to the customer’s needs and outcomes, constantly answering the question, ‘So what?’ In a solution, each feature has relevance. It either solves the customer’s problem, or it delivers value, or it does both.” (page 160)

The Power of Reputation by Christopher Komisarjevsky

“Most of the time, we have the opportunity to address a mistake, find a solution, make a correction, and give it another try. We are also in a unique position to achieve a longer-term goal: to make sure similar mistakes do not happen again. We need to take a candid look back at how the mistake happened and perform a two-part analysis: factual and person. The factual, or practical, analysis requires us to understand the facts and take what some call a ‘deep dive’ to examine the circumstances that led up to the mistake. Straightforward answers to some tough operational and management questions are the start. We start that process by collecting facts and digging as deeply as possible to make sure that there is nothing we have missed.” (page 179)

Project Management for Non-Project Managers by Jack Ferraro

“The term for the process of alignment and project tracking is portfolio project management. The idea is to keep the organization’s resources focused by making sure the proeject is doing the right work to facilitate achievement of the organization’s strategic goals. Remember, even if your project is approved, you must maintain a clear focus on your project’s link to strategic objectives. Project team members want to work on successful projects that have significance. Don’t make them work on a project in which they can’t see the organizational value. This sounds obvious and simple, but organizational behavior can be strange. ” (page 92)

Raising Capital, Third Edition by Andrew Sherman

“Many established businesses have a desire for rapid growth. After a certain point in their life, however,  most firms experience a growth slowdown. While some companies are satisfied with their position in the market, others want to jump-start their growth. Some angel investors and angel investor groups provide business accelerators that cater to these companies. Many angels who are not affiliated with the accelerators will also look to them for potential investment opportunities. With the help of an accelerator, a firm can get its growth onto the fast track to a degree  that it was not previously able to achieve.” (page 89)

The Secret Language of Influence by Dan Seidman

“Internal buyers make decisions based on their own experience and internal standards. An internal person can have difficulty accepting other people’s opinions, even good ones. These individuals also give little feedback to others, so you may be in the dark when trying to figure out what’s going on in their mind. Evidence is only useful if it agrees with their opinions.” (page 25)

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Mark Hunter on Three Things You Must Know Before You Discount to Get the Sale

The following is a guest post by Mark Hunter, author of High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price about dangers of discounting to win a sale.

I am not naïve. I’ve been around the sales industry long enough to have heard every argument in the book as to why discounting is a viable tool in a salesperson’s arsenal.

And nearly every time, the argument fails to convince me.

I don’t mean to sound harsh.  In fact, I am so committed to boosting sales motivation among salespeople that I go to great lengths to teach the skills that lead to sustainable profits.

I get why salespeople are quick to discount their price.  Obviously, it can be one of the quickest and easiest ways to close a sale.  Surface perceptions, though, miss the bigger problem brewing.

In my 18 years working in the sales industry, as well as my 14 years as a consultant, I’ve seen a common thread emerge when it comes to discounting.

Salespeople don’t comprehend the ugly impact that discounting has on their own career, as well as the company’s bottom line.

In my experience, there are incredibly few industries that effectively use discounting as a way to build profits.   In fact, the vast majority of salespeople with whom I meet are not doing themselves any favors by discounting.

Here are three things you must know before you discount:

1. If you discount, you change the customer’s perception of value immediately – and permanently.

Don’t be fooled by the initial rush of adrenaline that comes when a customer is quick to buy when you offer a lower price.   What has happened in that moment is that the customer has shifted their price/value relationship.

This is not a good thing for you, because whatever it is you are offering, the customer now associates a lower (less profitable) price with that product or service.

No big deal, right?!  Wrong.

Going forward, the customer is always going to expect this discount.  When you try to inch the price back up to where it should be, the customer’s disdain for the “new” higher price will be fierce and possibly even insurmountable.

Additionally, the types of customers you attract with discounted prices are usually high maintenance.  They start to make demands that will be exasperating, not to mention expensive, for you and support people in your company.

You want the customers who understand that what you are offering alleviates a pain they are experiencing or meets a desire they have.  These customers are willing to pay for those benefits.  They understand value in a way that a customer hungering for a discount will never understand.

2. If you discount, you will never make up lost profit.

You may be lulled into thinking that quantity of sales at the lower price will make up for any profit you will be losing by not selling at the correct price point.  Sadly, this is not the case.

Short-term and long-term, the profit loss will be incredibly difficult to overcome.   You will have to work harder for less.

Don’t believe me?   Sit down and run the numbers and you will see that you are better off closing fewer sales at full price than more sales at a discounted price.

3. If you discount, it will become your “go-to” method to close sales.

This is the biggest concern I think salespeople really need to consider before they discount their price.    If you discount once, it becomes increasingly easy to do it over and over again.

As a salesperson, you will become accustomed to the sales that come easily when you discount.  You may tell yourself that you’ll do it “just this one time,” but the allure of a quick sale is too strong.

At the same time, you start to believe that using the more difficult, yet more profitable, methods of closing sales at full price are impossible.  Yes, impossible.  You will convince yourself that the only way to close a sale is at a discount.

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Fortunately, there is a better solution than discounting.

Learn the techniques that will set you apart and equip you to become an exceptional member of your company’s sales team.  The people who use high-profit selling techniques will quickly remove “discounting” from their tool bag.

They won’t need it.

Whether you are a new salesperson, one with extensive experience, a sales manager or a CEO, you owe it to yourself to thoroughly understand the negative effects of discounting your price.

My guess is that once you grasp these, you’ll put your discounting days behind you. You’ll start experiencing the high-profit selling of which you are capable.

Mark Hunter, known as “The Sales Hunter,” has conducted thousands of customized training sales programs nationally and internationally. His client list includes Coca-Cola, Dole, Fisher-Price, Godiva, Heineken, Mattel, Unilever, and other industry leaders. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin.

Random Quotes from New Books This February

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, and while we’ll be watching eagerly to see what Punxsutawney Phil tells us about spring, you don’t have to wait to improve your sales skills.

High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price by Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter”

“Some people are nervous about being ‘found’ on the Web, but the reality is that you will be found regardless of what you do. It is just the nature of  how information is collected electronically. You may as well do whatever you can to make sure the information appears correctly. The days of being able to ‘hide’ or remain completely anonymous are gone. You may be thinking, however, that there’s no need to go to the effort of verifying your information because you sell for a major company and your customers already know you through your connection with your company. You are correct to a degree, but if you expect to be able to maximize customer profit and your own earnings, you had better make sure you are positioned the best you can be.” (page 145)

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