Please complete the following sentence:
People buy from people they _______________.
I’ve asked thousands of people to complete that sentence and the two answers I always get are "like" or "trust."
Ask yourself, is this an intellectual reaction, or a gut level emotional response?
People buy emotionally, and the emotional impact you have on people has less to do with what you say, and more to do with how you say it. Successful sales people are able to establish trust and ‘likability’ quickly with a wide range of people.
Building rapport is the first step in a successful sale, or for that matter, in any successful relationship. The thing that makes this so difficult in sales is that we may have just a few minutes to get things heading the right direction.
For some reason, we all click with or hit it off with certain people and bomb with others. Why does it happen? How can we get better at it?
A myth of the sales profession
One of the biggest myths in sales is that good sales people must be born with a ‘talent’ that others don’t possess. This just isn’t true. Up until now, we haven’t understood the mechanisms of human dynamics that cause us to be trusted and liked by others. The ability to inspire trust is something anyone can learn.
New research has given us insight into how the human mind functions, and how these human dynamics work. This new technology has application in many fields - education, personal performance enhancement, child development, parenting, leadership - and the sales profession.
Three components of communication
The emotional impact we have on others is the result of three components of communication - words, tonality, and body language. When we communicate,
Words account for about 7%
Tonality accounts for 38%
Body language accounts for 55%.
The human mind is made up of many separate subsystems. In simple terms, we all have receptors that see, hear and sense the messages that are given off by others. These receptors allow us to absorb information and make quick judgments or decisions even before the information has been passed on to the thinking part of the brain. The non-verbal messages that one person sends to another often determine whether he will, or will not, be believed or trusted long before the any words have been spoken. In the end, people like and trust people who are like them. You may have called this ‘intuition’ when you ‘had a feeling’ that you couldn’t quite explain about another person in the past.
Learning new skills
To become better at establishing trust, one must learn and practice some simple skills:
Learn how to observe another person for clues about how to best reach them.
Learn to shift to the other person’s preferred communication style and decision-making method.
Master these skills of sensing and matching so they can be done naturally and quickly, and you’ll become a much better sales person.
The 70/30 rule
The first rule of sales - for reasons beyond building rapport - is the 70/30 rule. The sales person should lead the conversation such that the prospect talks 70% of the time and the salesperson only 30%. This is especially key at the beginning - since it gives you a chance to hear, see and feel how the other person communicates. If you can do this (and most of us find it very hard!) you will naturally tend to move to their preferred communication style and improve your ability to bond with them.
Be like them
The second rule is to be like them. Mirror their communication and decision making style. This requires you to identify and match tonality, body language, preferred or dominant communication style, decision making style and personality type.
If they are fast paced and bottom line, you should be too. If they are more interested in getting to know you, take your time. If they are very detail oriented and analytic, be prepared to provide mounds of data. If you mix this up, you’ll fail. A bottom line person will shut down when you try to slowly develop a relationship or introduce mounds of data.
Telesales is different
In telesales, the problem is compounded, since your normal rapport building skills are constrained by both time and the lack a visual component. When you are on the phone the mix is now 80% tonality and 20% words. Your physiology is still a factor, however. Even though the party at the other end can’t see you, your tone reflects your body language. If you are smiling, it will reflect in your voice. If you are sitting at a desk, looking down - the traditional ‘cold call position’ - your tone will be constrained and ineffective. Use a headset, stand, gesture freely and naturally, look up and smile - it will show in your voice. The key is to master your voice as an instrument. Use our suggested openers to get the call off to a good start in the first 30 seconds.
Changing your emphasis
If you are like most sales people, you spend almost 100% of your time working on the 7% factor: words; and almost no time working on the other 93%: tonality and body language.
To become fluent at these skills is much like learning to dance. First you learn the steps, then you practice, and practice, and practice until it becomes second nature. Reading a book, watching a video, listening to an audiocassette just isn’t enough. You can’t master these skills without practice, anymore than you could learn to ski, dance, drive a car, or ride a bike through books, tapes or videos.
My experience indicates that mastery of non-verbal communication is best accomplished through tonality and body language exercises, combined with audio and video feedback.
Shift your emphasis to mastering new skills for building rapport. It will yield a significant competitive advantage when you make the first five minutes count.
Making the First Five Minutes Count
