CREATING SOMETHING from NOTHING

When I came to the door, many prospects may have thought to themselves, “I can handle this salesman because I’m a logical person.” What they didn’t know was that I disarmed them with emotion. Allow me to give you an example of control during a pitch with a presentation I made to a pipe smoking engineer who made an inquiry: As usual I was dressed with my usual T-shirt and sandals, playing my humble role. I didn’t have an attaché case or the typical three-piece suit like most other salespeople. The only thing I carried was a brochure in my hand and a pen in my pocket. When I came to the door this way I wanted to give the prospect the edge and let him think he was the one in control. After all, I was on his turf and he’d surely want to impress his wife with his logic to make himself look good at my expense. I asked the prospect, “Are you the decision maker in this family?” “Of course I am,” the engineer said, with the tone of King Kong beating on his chest. He turned and told his wife, “I’ll take care of this honey. Get back in the kitchen.” Once I was inside, he told me, “Wipe your feet. Sit down over there, we haven’t finished our meal yet.” I sat in the chair and hunkered down, making myself look tiny and insignificant. When he finished his dinner and came back into the living room burping, he said, “Now what’s this all about?” “Mr. Jones,” I said, “I want to tell you up front, I'm not an expert on this product. You probably know more about it than I do." Why did I say this? Well, what if he did know more about what I was promoting than I did? It disarmed him from using that knowledge as ammunition against me. He couldn’t ambush me that way because I’ve already admitted he’s the expert, not me. During the presentation I asked Mr. Jones, "What if I could offer you the best quality, does that mean anything to you?" I waited for a positive response. Once he said yes, I went on. He just made a commitment. If he hadn’t said yes, I would have kept asking or rephrasing the question until I got it out of him. Without closing the commitment, I never went on to the next one. The next question I asked was, "What if I could offer you the best service, does that mean anything to you?” Once he committed, then I’d ask, “And what if I could also offer you the best price, does that mean anything to you?” If I didn’t get these commitments from the prospect, I would stop the presentation. Every one of these commitments had to be yes because they trapped the prospect to either buy or lie at the close. If they don’t make the commitment to every proposition, the prospect will cop out at the close. Now that the prospect has agreed to all of my proposals, I took out one of those basic brochures about the property he had asked about in the lead I had. In seconds I could lead him to what he wanted to buy, but never quite let him have it. I would keep him a little off balance by Reversing him to another product, and as soon as he thinks he’s got me figured out, I’d again Reverse him again to another product. After all this mental surgery, in the end I brought him back to his original choice, but only after he understood that I had control and he didn’t. Now that the engineer thought he was firmly in control, I had to qualify and see if he was the real decision maker in the family he claimed he was……