During one of our coaching sessions, he told me, "I've been diligent about following sales process that my company believes is required to make a sale -- but, for some strange reason, my prospects don't want to fit into that process.

What am I doing wrong?"

Sean's comment struck me because it spoke to years of traditional selling programs that promote linear selling -- moving prospects along from one step to another until they say yes -- as a "guarantee" of sales success.

But there's an inherent conflict here.

Linear selling says that you have to impose a predetermined structure on building a relationship -- but that's by definition an unstructured process!

Suppose that "next step" isn't what prospect wants?

"Wait a minute," you might say. "What matters most is that I put as many prospects as possible into my sales process, and hopefully some of them will turn into sales."

If you're thinking that way, it's definitely time for you to consider a different way of thinking.

Of course you can make sales using linear selling -- but you'll never know how many sales you're losing week after week because you're wearing "blinders" of traditional selling.

If we fail to tune in to natural rhythm of trust-building when two strangers become involved in developing a relationship...or if we try to force prospects into our process, we make relationship about us and not them, whether we intend to or not.

And prospects sense that and pull back, because structured, linear sales processes don't recognize human elements required to build relationships that ultimately lead to sales.

Before a sale can happen, prospects need to feel that you're comfortable moving at their pace and their process.

If you try to force changes in that process, you'll only set off alarms that will pigeonhole you with negative stereotype of "salesperson."

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Quote

Words are most powerful drug used by mankind.

Rudyard Kipling

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I’d like to discuss most powerful words you can use during selling process.

Plainly, THE MOST POWERFUL WORD is YOU. You should be looking to use word You in your sales meetings a lot more than you use word I. As I’ve mentioned before idea is to be focused on your client’s needs but I’m sure this is restating what you already know.

I want to discuss words that you can use in your speech that will make your language more effective at controlling thoughts of your prospect.

OK, let’s assume you have established Rapport with your customer or prospect and you have identified a problem they have where a product you offer could be useful to them.

The idea then, at this point in sale, is to control internal representations that your customer is making in their head. What I’m about to offer is a linguistic pattern that focuses your client’s mind where you want it to focus and just about forces them to accept your concepts and ideas as true. Now, STOP ….. and just image how useful it would be if you could easily do that.

The Power Words are :

Naturally Easily Unlimited

Aware Realise Experience

Before During After

Among Expand Beyond

And As Causes Because

Now Stop

Now you may be thinking what’s so special about these words ?

Well, they become much more powerful if you follow rule below.

Rule: Always put adverbs before verb and adjectives before noun !

( Truthfully, words above are only examples of types of words you can use and I have produced this abridged list merely to help you focus on learning task at hand, i.e. how to incorporate these words into your sales language. Once you have done that you’ll find that you just naturally start to use other similar words in your speech. )

So let me go straight into some examples of how to use these words to good effect.

Have you ever found yourself saying ? “Could you make change from your current supplier to us ?” Well, that is just a question and your prospect could just as easily say “No ! I can’t”

What about, “How could you make change from your current supplier to us ?” Now, that is focusing your client on what you want them to be thinking about ( i.e. how they could change to using your product or service ) but you’re leaving a door open for them to say that they don’t know how.

What about sentence below ? “How easily could you make change from your current supplier to us ?” Now where is your customer’s mind focused ? Not on whether they could make change, nor on how they could do it, but on how easy it could be. They could still say “it would not be very easy” but notice that they are still likely to use word “easy”

Also, notice that I did not say, “How could you make change from your current supplier to us easily?” Because, first thing that would enter your client’s mind is how they could make change and they would already be considering answer to this question before they ever heard word easily ( if they heard it at all ).

It’s subtle and it has a profound effect.

Let me give you some more examples of sentences using these words.

“Have you discovered how easily you could make a consistent product if you used our improved raw material ?”

“Naturally, you’ll find more than enough reasons to go ahead today even if you can only see a few of unlimited benefits that our product provides.”

These “power words” become even more powerful when you stack them into a sentence. The more of these words you use in a sentence harder it is for your prospect’s conscious mind to filter out inferences these words are forcing them to make.

“Once you begin to easily absorb this information, you’ll naturally discover unlimited potential it has for readily making your communication infinitely more effective.” ( Perhaps this sentences is a bit over-the-top ? )

“Have you become aware yet of many ways that our product could help in your production ?” ( inference being there are many benefits and you will become aware of them at some point in time )

“After you experience our product , by trailing it in your plant, you will realize many ways in which it will easily improve your end product” ( infers you’ll try product and there are many ways this product can benefit your production )

Here’s some more examples for you.