A new way to look at questions and engagement: emotionally

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When you’re asking an existing or prospective customer a question, the object is to get them to think and respond emotionally.

To most salespeople this strategy sounds like a foreign language.

START YOUR THINKING HERE: The sale is made emotionally and justified logically. Once you understand that fact, it makes perfect sense to engage the customer emotionally to set the tone for them to decide to buy.

Most salespeople are taught the difference between open-ended and closed-ended questions. A closed-ended question is one that results in a yes or no answer. An open-ended question is one that begins to create dialogue from the customer. Open-ended questions are good, but they don’t necessarily breed emotion. This process is necessary to understand, but at its core is passé.

Here’s a new way of thinking about your questioning strategy: logic-based questions vs. emotion-based questions.

This thought process and strategy will give you a new awakening about how customers think and decide. And by using emotion-based questions, you can get them to decide on you.

CAUTION and CHALLENGE: This is insight to a new questioning process that will help you formulate emotionally engaging questions. I’ll give you phrases to use, and a few sample questions. Your job is to understand the process and create your own questions based on your product, service, customer needs, and customer’s desired outcome. Questions that draw out their emotion, and keep focus away from logic – AKA price.

Logic-based questions center around the old-world ‘qualifying’ questions. These are questions that both annoy and aggravate the customer. Logic-based questions basically ask for money information so the salesperson can begin to salivate. “What’s your present payment?” or “What have you paid in the past?” or “What’s your budget?” or “Do you want to lease or buy?” These are questions fall under the category of ‘none of your business.’

KEY CONCEPT: Do not qualify the buyer, let them qualify themselves because you’re so friendly, engaging, and genuinely interested.

The late, great Dale Carnegie said, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people, than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

Emotion-based questions ask about their life and use, not their money. Prior to beginning your ‘presentation,’ ask the customer emotion-based questions that begin with the words, “How long have you been thinking about…” or “What were you hoping for…”

Get the customer to paint their vision of outcome.
Get the customer to paint their picture of ‘after they buy.’

During the purchase, ask emotion-based questions such as, “Is this what you had in mind?” or “How do you see this serving your purpose?” or “How do you see your family enjoying this?” Or take it even deeper with, “What do you think Bobby will say when he sees this?”

Emotion-based questions draw out feelings – feelings that will lead to true engagement and honest answers about how your product or service will affect their expected outcome.

When you can get the customer to visualize outcome, you also have them visualizing ownership – otherwise known to you as ‘purchase.’

MAJOR POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: People don’t actually come to purchase. They come to purchase because they want to USE. What happens AFTER the purchase is way more important to the customer than the actual purchasing process. Drawing out their emotion during the process is the key to getting them to take ownership.

So, during the sales presentation you might want to ask questions that begin with phrases like, “What are you hoping to achieve?” or “How will you use this in your business?” or “How do you envision this will add to your productivity?” or “How do you believe this will affect your profit?”

Whether you are selling to a consumer or a business, whether you are selling on the phone or face-to-face, the process and the emotional involvement are the same. Someone wants to take ownership, and your job is to get them to visualize it, be engaged by you, agree with you, believe you, have confidence in you, trust you, accept your price, and pull the trigger.

The key to this is emotional involvement. No manipulation, no pressure, no old world sales techniques, no NLP, just friendly and genuine emotional engagement that touches the heart and the mind simultaneously.

“Jeffrey, I’ve been taught to ‘find the pain.’ Is that emotional?” Yes, but in a negative way. A very negative way. Pain is a negative emotion – or as I call it, a ‘none-of-your-business emotion.’ Dumb questions like, “What keeps you up at night?” create an uneasy, uncomfortable atmosphere between you and the customer. And most of the time, if you’re asking a negative-based question the customer will not give you a real answer.

AHA! Don’t find the pain. Find the pleasure.

Pleasure evokes positive emotion. “Tell me about your vacation.” “How is Morgan following your passion for fashion?” “How is Henry following your passion for golf?” “Where was your biking trip this year?”

Find their pleasure, find their purpose, find their expected outcome, uncover their true emotional motives – and you will find their wallet.

Now that’s pleasure.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

The Secret of Lousy Service and How to Fix It

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Last week I promised the answers to why lousy service occurs and how to fix it. If you didn’t read part one, stop now, and go here.

The answer revolves around four words you already know: positive attitude and personal pride.

Let’s start with a little background…

Here are the reasons or feelings that negatively affect your attitude, and reduce or eliminate the power of your ability to serve at a superior level:

  • My boss is a jerk.
  • I hate my job.
  • I hate my coworkers.
  • I’m too good for this.
  • They don’t pay me enough.
  • They don’t understand me.
  • Benefits suck here.
  • I have my resume in five other places.
  • I can’t wait to get out of here.

ANSWER ONE: There’s a two-word secret to service response: positive attitude.

  • Positive attitude, defined as the way you dedicated yourself to the way you think, is the beginning point of service.
  • Positive attitude is not what happens to you. It’s what you do, and how you respond to what happens to you. That is the essence of service.
  • Positive attitude must be the first part of any training program, or the rest of training will fall on deaf ears – or worse – existing negative attitudes.

ANSWER TWO: There’s a two-word secret to the service process: personal pride.

  • It’s not how you feel about the customer, it’s not how do you feel about the circumstance. It’s all about how you feel about yourself. Your personal pride.
  • Personal pride should give you the incentive to be at your best, respond at your best, and serve at your best at all times.
  • You’re not doing this for other people, you’re doing it for yourself. Once you understand that, great service not only becomes easy, it actually becomes fun.

Here are a few guidelines to make personal pride more easily understood:

  • Personal pride must be more powerful than feelings about boss or company
  • Personal pride must be more powerful than pay
  • Personal pride must be more powerful than existing job

REALITY: If positive attitude and personal pride are present, then service, even great service, is possible. And vice versa.

MAJOR POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: It’s not a job, it’s an opportunity. And your attitude, combined with your personal pride, will determine your short-term and long-term fate.

Yes, I realize there may be extenuating, outside circumstances that affect attitude, pride, and even performance. There are too many possible issues to deal with in this short piece, but I do want to acknowledge it’s not always work related.

KEY POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: It’s likely that most people reading this will not be in the same job five years from today. But between now and then, the thoughts you have, the personal pride you build and display, and your level of performance will dictate the quality of job, or advancement, you’re likely to secure.

Why would you risk lousy performance at your present job, thinking you’re going to get a better job based on resume or desire? It doesn’t make sense. And it’s a fantasy with an unhappy ending.

KEY POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: Once you understand that you’re serving for yourself, once you understand that your attitude will determine your communication excellence, and once you understand your personal pride will dictate your actions – at once you see your possibilities, and will have the ability to better improve your performance.

Don’t be mad at the world, don’t be mad at your customers, don’t be mad at your boss, don’t be mad at your coworkers – be happy about yourself.

NOTE WELL: If you’re the boss, or you’re in HR, or you’re the trainer, stop training a bunch a crap about your company and how to fill out the silly papers, stop telling me all about how great the company is, how you have a great reputation, and that I should be happy to work here. That’s a bunch of baloney! You can email me that.

START YOUR TRAINING SESSIONS LIKE THIS: Here are two things most people don’t know about themselves AND their success.

HR REALITY: Train me about me. My attitude, my personal pride, my happiness, my opportunity. Information I can use NOW and LATER. Information that applies to ME.
BIGGER HR REALITY: Most employees disdain training, they just want a paycheck.
BIGGEST HR REALITY: The more you help the employee succeed, the more they will set the standard you’re hoping for. They will have a better attitude and serve with pride because you helped them.

That’s not just a challenge, HR – that’s YOUR opportunity.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

The Secret of Lousy Service and Why it Happens

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QUESTION: Why does lousy service occur?
ANSWER: Lousy service happens because (big) companies don’t understand people OR training.

I am amazed at how many times someone in a service environment delivers lousy service. And it’s often not just lousy – add rude, offensive, abrasive, defensive, maddening, and most of all disappointing.

GREAT NEWS: It doesn’t have to be like that.

If I take the time to complain, which I rarely do anymore, the manager will always ask, “Did you get the name of the person?” Somehow getting the name of the person is important to the manager. But it is unimportant to me. I never get their name.

The manager is looking to blame someone. I’m looking for someone to accept responsibility. The manager is NEVER the one who takes it.

I have found poor service is a reflection of the company and its leaders, not just the person who delivered it.

MY REALITY: When a manager asks me for the person’s name who delivered lousy service, I reply, “Don’t yell at the person who gave me lousy service. Yell at the person who trained them.” The person delivering poor service is most likely to have been poorly trained or ill trained, or both. They’re doing what they were trained to do, and say what they were trained to say.

Or the employee will ‘modify training’ and make statements based on their ‘at the moment’ feelings:

  • Sorry about that…
  • That’s our policy…
  • I’m just doing my job…
  • They don’t pay me to think…
  • I’m just a peon…

Or worse, they become defensive, even rude, when a customer expresses frustration or anger as a reaction to what happened. Employees do that because someone TAUGHT THEM they don’t have to take gruff from a customer. (REALITY: The customer provides the money for their paycheck).

Ever get poor service at an airline? Of course you have, EVERYONE HAS. It happens because the people who work at the airlines are undertrained, poorly managed, feel put upon by their management and their leadership, underpaid, rarely if ever praised, and are exposed to constant customer complaints. They don’t like their job, they don’t like or respect their leader, they don’t like their company, and they don’t like the people they serve. Not good.

Now granted, this is a generalization, but I’m in the air enough to make the comment based on 20 years of flying experience. I get an occasional nice person. I have an occasional pleasant experience. But they are so rare that I actually go up to the person and thank them for being nice, for being happy, and for being friendly.

So let’s get back to the question at hand. Why does lousy service exist?

Who is responsible to make great service possible?
Who is responsible to make great service happen?

I always ask people in service positions, “How’s it going?” Most people respond in some negative fashion. Statements like, “Well, tomorrow is Friday!” or “I’ll let you know in two hours when I get off.” or “You’re kidding, right?”

These are losing, self-defeating statements. Statements made by people who fail to understand that doing their best, having a great attitude, and having a high sense of personal pride have nothing to do with the job. They have everything to do with who you are as a person.

Most of the front-line servers are in low-paying positions. When you combine that with our “feeling of entitlement” workforce and with training that’s all about the company, with a smattering of, “smile, greet the customer, thank the customer,” you have a perfect setting for mediocre or lousy service to occur most of the time.

About now, you want answers to this dilemma. I have them. They revolve around four words you already know: positive attitude and personal pride. But there is way more to these four words than your known definition.

Positive attitude and personal pride hold the key to your success, and they will be discussed in-depth next week.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

Are you passive, aggressive, or assertive? Only one way wins.

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The answer is ‘assertive.’ It’s the best strategy for engaging, establishing control, proving value, creating a buying atmosphere, and forging a relationship.

I define assertiveness as a state of mind and a state of preparation PRIOR to implementation in a sales call.

CAUTION: This writing assumes (a bad thought process in sales) you have both read and mastered last week’s part one. If you haven’t, you can find it here or by entering the words ASSERTIVE SELLING in the GitBit box at www.gitomer.com. You must read, understand, and put those concepts into practice BEFORE part two can take shape.

The two remaining parts of assertiveness are:

  1. The sales presentation itself.
  2. The follow-up to the sales call.

Interesting that the sales call, the actual presentation, does not require the same amount of assertiveness as the sales follow-up. It’s way more difficult to re-engage a prospect and chase down a decision.

However, if you’re a great salesperson, an assertive salesperson, follow-up may not be necessary because you have asserted your way to the sale during the presentation.

THE PRESENTATION: When you get in front of a prospective customer, it is imperative that you look impressive and sound impressive. You know the old saying, “You never have a second chance to make a first impression.” You must start in a positive position in order to create a positive outcome.

Assertiveness begins with your eye contact, smile, and handshake. These actions establish you in the mind of the prospect as a person who is both self-assured and happy.

You take a relaxed seat. You accept anything that is offered to you in the way of water or coffee. You put yourself in the lean-forward position. Any tools or equipment you need to make your presentation are in front of you and ready to go. And you immediately begin by discussing anything other than your business and their business.

You begin the business of making friends. You begin the business of creating mutual smiles. You begin talking about them in a way that lets them know you’ve done your preparation and your homework. At any moment you can begin to discuss their needs, however you prefer to discuss their family or their personal interests first.

The segue from rapport building to business discussion requires an assertive thought process. There’s no formula, but there is a feeling. The salesperson’s responsibility is to feel when it’s right to move forward, and then have the assertive courage to do it.

Assertive presentations start with questions, offer unchallengeable proof in the middle, and end with a customer commitment that you have earned.

BEWARE and BE AWARE: Whoever you’re calling on wants to know what’s new and what the trends are in THEIR business. If you are able to deliver those during your presentation, I guarantee you’ll develop a value-based relationship, and have the full attention of the buyer.

Harnessing the power of ‘assertive’ in a sales presentation:

The assertive presentation challenges you, the salesperson, to bring forth a combination of your knowledge as it relates to their needs as well as a durability to connect both verbally and non-verbally with the person or the group you’re addressing.

You’ll know your assertive strategy is working when the customer or the prospective customer begins asking questions to get a deeper understanding about your product or service. This changes monologue to dialogue but also creates the power of engagement, or should I say assertive engagement.

At some point you have to complete the transaction. This means either asking for the sale (an okay part of the assertive process), or using some secondary means to confirm the sale (like scheduling delivery or installation).

Commitment to the order is where the rubber meets the road. If you get the order, it means you’ve done an assertively great job. If you don’t get it, it means you have to lapse into assertive follow-up mode. Here’s how…

THE FOLLOW UP: Assertive follow-up will become permissible if asked for, and agreed upon, in advance.

Here’s how: “Mr. Jones, what’s the best way for me to stay in touch with you?” “What’s your preferred method of communication?” “Is there anyone else I should ‘cc’ in our communications?” “May I send you an occasional text?”

These are permission-based questions that tell you where you are in the relationship. If you get a cell phone number and you’re permitted to send an occasional text, it means your relationship has reached a solid position.

WHERE’S THE VALUE? If I ask for a ‘follow-up’ appointment, I’ll no doubt get some vague runaround. BUT if I offer to come back with some valuable information about his or her business or job function, I’m certain to be granted that appointment.

The dialogue might go something like this, “Mr. Jones, I visit 30 or 40 businesses a month. During those visits I don’t just sell, I observe. Each month I list two or three ‘best practices.’ In my follow-up with you, I’ll need five minutes to share those practices each month. Is that fair enough?”

Heck yes! That’s fair enough. Your offer to help the customer with his or her business, and his or her job function, will not just endear you, it will also create the basis of a solid relationship. A value-based relationship. One where assertiveness is actually acceptable.

The ultimate goal beyond a sale is a trusted relationship with your customer. The path to secure that relationship begins with mastering the principles of assertiveness and then putting them into practice.

The by-product is more sales.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

Pushy, aggressive, obnoxious, assertive, or professional. Which are you?

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Sales reps get a bad rap for trying to sell too hard.

You’ve heard the term “pushy salesman” or “aggressive salesperson” or even “obnoxious salesman.” How do those phrases make you feel?

And salespeople go to great lengths NOT to be perceived as pushy, or aggressive, or obnoxious – so they (maybe you) go to the opposite end of the spectrum and try to be or be known as professional.

BEWARE and BE AWARE: A professional sales call is okay, but boring. Professional meetings typically have no outcome. Or worse, they result in never-ending follow-up, void of sales. Not good. Here’s a good way to think about professionalism: your customer must perceive you as a professional person. It’s more of a look on your part, and a perception on the part of the customer. In today’s world of selling, professionalism is a given. Your words, actions, and deeds take over from there.

Professionalism is not bad, but professionalism alone will not net sales.

MAJOR AHA! Between pushy, aggressive, obnoxious, and professional lies a middle ground – a ground where sales are made. It’s known as assertive.

CAUTION: Assertiveness is not a word – it’s a strategy and a style. It’s not just “a way in which you conduct yourself.” Rather, it’s a full-blown strategy that has elements to master way before assertiveness can begin and be accepted as a style of selling.

BEWARE and BE AWARE: Assertiveness is a GOOD style of selling as long as you understand, and have mastered, the elements that make “assertive” acceptable on the part of the customer.
WHERE DOES ASSERTIVENESS COME FROM?

  • The root of assertiveness is belief. Your belief in what you do, your belief in who you represent, your belief in the products and services that you sell, your belief in yourself, your belief that you can differentiate yourself from your competitor (not compare yourself to), and your firm belief that the customer is better off having purchased from you. These are not things you believe in your head. Rather, these are things you must believe in your heart. Deep belief is the first step in creating an assertive process. Until you believe, mediocrity is the norm. Once you believe in your heart, all else is possible.
  • An Attitude of Positive Anticipation. In order to be assertive, positive attitude or YES! Attitude is not enough. You must possess an “Attitude of Positive Anticipation.” This means walking into any sales call with a degree of certainty that the outcome will be in your favor. It means having a spirit about you that is easily contagious – a spirit that your customer can catch, and buy.
  • Total preparation is the secret sauce of assertiveness. This must include customer-focused, pre-call planning as well as creating the objective, the proposed outcome, for a sales call. Most salespeople make the fatal mistake of preparing in terms of themselves (product knowledge, literature,business cards, blah, blah). The reality of total preparation means preparing in terms of the customer FIRST. Their needs, their desires, and their anticipated positive outcomes – their win. If these elements are not an integral part of your preparation, you will lose to someone who has them.
  • The assertive equation must also contain undeniable value in favor of the customer. This is not just part of preparation, this is also part of the relationships you have built with other customers who are willing to testify on your behalf, and other proof that you have (hopefully in video format) that a prospective customer can relate to, believe in, and purchase as a result of.

REALITY: It’s not about changing your beliefs, it’s about strengthening your beliefs. It’s not about changing your attitude, it’s about building your attitude. It’s not about changing your preparation, it’s about intensifying your preparation. It’s not about adding value, it’s about delivering perceived value.

BIGGER REALITY: When you have mastered belief, attitude, preparation, and value as I have just defined them, then and only then, can assertiveness and assertive selling begin to take place.

BIGGEST REALITY: Incremental growth in belief, attitude, preparation, and value offered will lead to assertive sales calls and an increase in sales.

YOUR STATURE IS THE GLUE: Your professional look, your quiet self-confidence, your surety of knowledge andinformation that can help your customer, your past history of success, your possession of undeniable proof, and your assertive ability to ask your customers to beresponsible to their customers and their employees. (Responsibility is an acceptable (and assertive) form of accountability). No customer wants to be accountable to a sales rep – but EVERY customer has a MISSION to be responsible to his or her customers and co-workers.

When you combine your belief, your attitude, your preparation, your value, and your assertiveness, the outcome is predictable: It’s more sales.

Next week is all about the assertive sales call. Get ready.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].