Re: "The Sales Game" with NLP
- Subject: Re: "The Sales Game" with NLP
- From: McClendon & Associates <mccassoc@iig.com.au>
- Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 09:44:48 +1000
>>At 06:25 AM 10/28/96 +0000, you wrote:
>>> I'm in home improvement sales and a good product at a fair price yet
>>> we still get a large number of cancellations( within 3 day recission
>>> period) . I'm interested in hearing from sales professionals who use
>>> NLP successfully in their work and you are doing and saying to prevent
>>> this incongruency. I'm playing with time distortion, buttoning in all
>>> 3 rep systems and visual squash. Let me know what your doing.
>>~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Over the past few years, our organisation was commissioned
to conduct modelling projects eliciting the excellence of sales
professionals: (a) telesales consultants for Australia's leading
telecommunications company, Telstra; (b) canvassers for
Greenpeace; and, (c) insurance sales for Mercantile Mutual.
The modelling projects were extensive, however, there are a
couple of basic but critical skills I think worth mentioning here.
Firstly, those individuals nominated by management as being
the best sales professionals in their field, experience very
little, if any, "buyers remorse".
I believe the answer lies in the first few steps of their
strategy, their key meta programs and central beliefs.
I've simplified and extracted the following information from
the above mentioned projects.
1. Strategy
(strategy commences with motivational components...)
On meeting or talking with a customer, the Model of
Excellence (MOE) associates into the shoes of the customer.
They do this for two reasons, to gain rapport and to
gather information from the customer's perspective.
Then they qualify the clients needs, i.e. ask questions,
to clarify they understand what the client requires and
to minimise any confusion. They double check with the
customer that their outcome is really what they want by
feeding it back to the customer.
(strategy continues...)
2. Meta Programs
One of the key meta programs that is elicited from the MOE
is "OTHER". The MOE understands by stepping into the shoes
of another and perceiving through the customer's eyes and ears.
People who score high on Other are good at developing rapport
because they naturally try to understand where someone else
is coming from. They determine how well they are
communicating by paying attention to the results they are
producing in the people around them, as opposed to paying
attention to how they feel about it personally.
(We use our MMSS computerised personality assessment survey
to elicit meta programs.)
(3) Beliefs
The MOE always holds as one of their top three beliefs that
customer relations is important. They represent this by
impactful submodalities - associated, panoramic, bright,
colourful, stereo sound of customers' voices sounding
pleased and providing positive feedback to the MOE, warm
feelings all over with tingling sensations and a smooth,
even connected feeling.
Although the above information is only small parts of
comprehensive modelling reports, they seem to be the
key to preventing buyers remorse.
I've been selling NLP and Ericksonian programs for
a decade and from my work experience as a sales
professional I haven't experienced a case of buyers
remorse.
From the information gleaned from these Models of
Excellence, I developed a program called the "Sales Game"tm
and some of the key NLP skills I teach are: association,
rapport, meta-model (an abbreviated version concentrating
on the information gathering and limits to the model
aspects), well formed outcomes and criteria. I also do
an attitude adjustment along the lines of the belief and
key submodalities mentioned above. Once sales professionals
have mastered these basics, then we move into the land of
rep systems, presuppositions and embedded commands etc.
Selling well is one of those things I'm passionate about.
I love to sell and assist customers in realising their
dreams. However, if I know that I do not have what a
customer is looking for, I refer them to the appropriate
place. One time, I had a customer call wanting to enrol
in our NLP Practitioner program but after qualifying him,
discovered he wanted to fix his phobia. I referred him
to one of our master practitioners for counselling
instead.
I have to be honest and say that I hate to refer
to competitors, but I will do it when the situation arises.
It doesn't happen often but occasionally a customer will
want to do an NLP training that is personal growth oriented
because they want to work on their own "stuff". In which
case, I know that McClendon & Associates with our
professional development focus will not be suitable.
I have one customer who did NLP training elsewhere but
refers his friends and colleagues to our training
organisation! So over the years, I've seen this approach
pay off.
Hope this helps those people who realise that selling is
a process that occurs wherever you are communicating with
other people - whether selling yourself, your services,
your ideas, your products - sell well and enjoy the rewards!
Best regards,
Kasrynne Huolohan
McClendon & Associates
The Premier NLP Training Organisation of Australia
visit our homepage at http://www.iig.com.au/mccassoc
PO Box 1, St Lucia (University)
Queensland 4067 Australia
Int'l ph: 61 70 58 1988
Int'l fax: 61 70 58 1992
Tollfree: 1800 079 121
e-mail: mccassoc@iig.com.au
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