The Art of Persuasion
Do you want to boost your selling power? Then, add power to your
persuasion.
But how can you add power to your persuasion? How can you become
more effective at persuading your customers to buy?
Let's look at the way the skilled professionals put power into
their ability to persuade.
Let me share with you ten secrets I've learned from some of the
most persuasive salespeople in America -- ten ways to add power
to your persuasion. I call them the 10 P's of persuasion.
(1) Be positive.
One of the most successful insurance salesmen in America is a
country fellow from South Georgia, who says, "You can no more
sell something you don't believe in, than you can come back from
some place you ain't been."
Successful salespeople are positive people.
They have positive mental attitudes about themselves, the
companies they represent, the products or services they're
selling, the prospects they're attempting to persuade, the
country they live in. They're positive about everything.
Enthusiasm is contagious. When you're excited about life and the
work you're doing, you can persuade with power, because you can
get other people excited.
(2) Prospect.
Successful salespeople have learned to direct their persuasive
power toward people who have the resources to buy and have good
reasons to buy what they are selling.
Professional salespeople pinpoint prospects who are likely to
provide long-term profitability. They analyze the possibilities
for cross-selling. They know that it takes an average of three
calls to cross-sell an existing customer but seven to sell to a
new customer.
In short, the powerful persuader targets all efforts at the
person who has the resources, the motivation, and the authority
to buy, and the potential for profitable repeat sales.
(3) Prepare.
Red Motley, who started Parade magazine, said that the average
salesperson will work like crazy to get an appointment, then
blow the opportunity with a poor presentation after the
decision-maker has agreed to the interview.
You don't make sales to busy people by rambling on for 40
minutes about features and benefits. Usually, after such
disjointed presentations, neither the salesperson nor the
prospect can summarize what's just been said.
Professional salespeople always do their homework. They know
that the better they're prepared, the more persuasive they'll be
when they walk in to make a presentation.
They research to find out everything they need to know about the
prospect. They plan what they will show and what they will say.
And they practice, practice, practice.
(4) Perform.
Amateur salespeople complain furiously when they are beaten out
by a competitor. How could that customer buy that overpriced,
poor-quality product? He must be an idiot!
The customer was no idiot. The complainer was just outperformed
by a more competitive salesperson.
Remember: People don't buy; they're sold. In fact, nothing is
ever bought. Everything has to be sold. If you don't make a
strong presentation, you can't persuade your prospect to buy.
Powerful persuaders are like stage actors playing to a full
house. They are artists at making their presentations. They're
entertaining and informative to watch and hear.
To succeed in business, you have to make every second of every
minute of your "action time" count.
(5) Be perceptive.
Powerful persuaders are alert to everything that happens during
a sales interview.
They are not preoccupied with personal problems, with airline
schedules, or even with the next call they are going to make.
They know that reaching a sales goal always begins with making
the sale at hand.
Powerful persuaders tune into their prospects and look for the
motivating forces in the life of each. Once they discover that
motivating force, they play to the motivation.
To add power to your persuasion, learn to read your prospects
and to discover the motivations they have to buy or not to buy.
(6) Probe.
Average salespeople do a lot of talking. They can give you a
30-minute speech on any subject you want to name.
That's why silence is so threatening to most salespeople. The
instant a prospect pauses to take a breath, the amateur will
jump in with a sales spiel, just to break the silence.
But powerful persuaders use questions to diagnose the needs and
concerns of a prospect much as a skilled physician uses them to
diagnose the problems of a patient.
They become masters at asking penetrating questions, and they
use those questions to draw prospects into the selling process.
(7) Personalize.
The most powerful word in selling is you.
The emphasis on you marks the difference between manipulative
and non-manipulative selling.
Manipulative selling is self-centered. It focuses on what the
salesperson wants and needs.
Non-manipulative selling is client-centered. It focuses on the
needs and desires of the prospect.
A person who is looking at the business proposition you are
offering wants to know just one thing: what's in it for me?
If you want to add power to your persuasion, personalize every
part of your presentation to meet your prospect's own personal
needs and wants.
(8) Please.
Powerful persuaders seek to close sales by pleasing their
clients. When prospects become excited about the idea of owning
what you're selling, they become customers.
Professional salespeople know that they can't force their
prospects to buy. Their challenge is to make them want to buy.
So they seek to please them in so many ways that they create the
desire to buy.
(9) Prove.
Salespeople with selling savvy don't make statements they can't
back up with facts.
And they don't expect their clients to accept at face value
everything they say. They are always prepared to prove every
claim they make -- to back up those claims with hard data, with
test results, and with performance records.
One of the best ways to persuade by proving is to give proof
statements from people who are happy with your products or
services. Third-party endorsements go a long way in building
credibility for your claims, and for your products.
Facts and testimonials are very persuasive. Learn to use them,
and become a powerful persuader.
(10) Persist.
Call on good prospects as many times as it takes to sell them.
About 80% of sales are made on the fifth call or later. Yet
studies have shown that: