How I wasted hours of my time today

Yes I had a guy who is trying to start a business. I agreed to help him get his mindset right so he could succeed.

I am not sure how many of you have been in the position of trying to help someone who thinks they already know everything. It can be a frustrating experience. This guy has one simple problem. He thinks he already knows what his customers are thinking. So he does not listen to them. he is so stuck in what he thinks they need that he does not listen to what they want.

So many people do this on a daily basis when talking to people. They just won’t listen. They already have their mind made up and are convinced that they are right. No matter what your interaction  is like if you are all output and no input then you can’t possibly have any influence over who you are talking to.

I was recently at a meeting with a company that we are doing some sales trainings for. What is new for this company is that before now, they never had to sell. They had a great product and they are the top of the market. In the meeting I asked the training manager what his goal was. Then I shut up. Then I listened. This was a phone conference so all I had was my ability to listen.

A minute in he made a statement that I could tell meant something to him. I could hear the emotion in that statement. It was important to him. So I keyed on that one statement. When it was my turn to talk I told him what our plan was and then used his key statement to emphasize it. In that conversation I used it 2 more times. within a 10 minute meeting he was 100% behind hiring us to fly back to Europe and train his sales staff. He even wanted us to come back in June.

Why was this so powerful? Because I listened and did not try to impose what I thought he wanted to hear. Both Kim and I used what we the client told us he wanted. We fit it into our presentation by utilizing it but only sparingly. So it had massive impact.

So many people somehow stopped listening. They are so wrapped up in their agenda that they push people around with it. When selling they think they know what the client needs so they miss the target. They break rapport instead of building rapport and they avoid building a real relationship with the client.

Recently one regional sale manager who went through our London seminar went to see a client they had been talking to for 6 months. After using what they learned they built a relationship with they guy that opened him up. he gushed about all of his problems and his fears about making any decision. What they learned was that they wasted 6 months talking to someone who emotionally could not make a decision.  This guy would never make a decision no matter how long they try to sell to him.

Now they knew that they had to get around this guy to a real decision maker. Now the deal could finally move forward. It would be a big favor to the guy who couldn’t make the decision to take the burden off of him.

I don’t care what persuasion or sale skills you have, if you don’t listen to who you are talking to then you can’t build a relationship with them that will help them make the decision. Listen for the emotional triggers. Listen for the state they are in. Listen for how they mark out what is important to them. Listen to what they want to hear.

Then you KNOW what to say. You KNOW what to anchor. How you say it is a subject for a different article. 🙂

As for the guy who wasted my morning, he has a great concept. If he starts listening to his customers he will make a ton of money. If not he will fail like so many others that like to push people around and force then into the one idea of what they need.

Here is what I want you to do today. Just once today I want you to listen to someone instead of talk. Notice how they respond. Notice what you hear. Notice the states they go into. Notice their trigger words. Just once is all I ask. Then let me know if you notice anything different.

Have fun

Tom and Kim