By Peter Lawlesss
All too often sales people assume that buyers use the same criteria to make a purchase as they would. This can lead to frustration and indeed some serious self doubt on a sales person's behalf. "They just don't get it", you may think to yourself. The reality is that not everyone thinks the same way. This is the first in a series of articles that looks at how you make choices, your customer makes choices, and how to realign your sales strategy, should they be different to you.
Without knowing a person's strategy, you could be emphasising all the wrong points.
What does moving towards or away from mean?
With all of us, two things matter. The first is engaging activities that please us. The second is avoiding activities that cause us pain. So when I say people are moving towards, I mean that they tend to spend most of their time trying to move towards pleasure.
On the other hand, some people predominantly spend their time avoiding pain. In NLP, this is often referred to as one of their strategies. I say predominantly, because most people will do both; however one of them figures more in their life than the other.
So what has this to do with selling, you may ask. Lots! Because if you are a moving towards type person, who is selling cars, you may wish to emphasize the looks, time from 0-60, the power of the engine etc. But what if the person is looking for reliability, a car that is safe, and has low fuel consumption? They would be a person who wants to avoid the pain of breakdowns, the danger in a collision and the high cost of fuel!
Without knowing a person's strategy, you could be emphasising all the wrong points. It is therefore vital to ask the person some questions, so as to elicit their strategy, so that you can emphasise points that match their way of thinking.
What questions to ask, to elicit someone's strategy?
In the above example, the obvious question to ask is; "what do you look for in a car?" Interestingly enough that question can work in a most situations, along with "what do you look for in a house" and "what do you look for in a relationship.
The answers will give you a very good idea as to whether they are a, "moving towards" or "moving away from", type person.
There are many questions that you can ask, indeed you should ask questions relevant to your business or offerings, so that not only do you get a clue as to a person's strategy, you also help in the sales process.
A question that I might use in my business would be as follows; "What do you look for in a sales coach?"
While there are many different answers, why don't you see which of these answers is most appropriate to you?
1. I want someone to help me achieve my targets, so that I can buy that Lexus I have had my eye on.
2. I don't believe I am reaching my true potential, and I want to ensure I don't miss my targets again.
Can you see how the addition of "because my current car keeps breaking down" to the first response changes the emphasis from moving towards to moving away from?
What to do if their strategy is different to yours?
One of my clients had two partners who were selling the benefits of managed services for small to medium sized companies. One of the partners seemed to have the most success with clients who were looking for these types of services to avoid downtime and save costs.
While the other guy, found most success with customers who wanted someone to look after their IT systems, so that they could focus on what they were good at.
Given that most people can relate well to people who think the way that they do, it is not surprising that without this understanding, which they will often fail to convince someone who thinks differently.
The mere fact that you now understand one of the ways that people make decisions, and that it could be different to yours, in my opinion, you should find it a lot easier to sell your offerings.
Conclusion
First understand your own strategy. Then try out these simple questions with a few of your friends, to get an understanding of how they think. There is a good chance that you will be amazed at the insights these simple questions give you into people.
Translating these insights into questions that you can then use to move buyers closer to your products can still seem a challenge to some people, maybe then you could do with some help.
About the Author: This article was written by Peter Lawless, founder of 3R Sales and Marketing. For previous articles like this, visit 3R's Articles. Alternatively, subscribe to Success our free monthly Information Bulletin with sales and marketing articl
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